Guardians of the Galaxy OC Insert
by GeekyGirl183
Summary: After losing her mother and sister to her planet's destruction, Astra is subjected to experiments by exiled scientists before she is taken in as an apprentice bounty hunter by an anthropomorphic raccoon and a tree who can only say three words. I only own my OC Joules, I DO NOT own either of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, their characters, or the picture used for the cover.
1. OC File- Astra

Names:

Real Name- Astra

Lab Code- J75-4

Given Name- Joules (JJ)

Species:

Chrysinthean

Age:

9 when Chrysinthea is destroyed

Personality:

Quiet, yet a fierce fighter when defending Rocket and Groot, tech smart, loyal, naive, and sarcastic at times due to being around Rocket a lot

Physical Appearance:

Short copper hair, gray skin, blue/violet swirl eyes, blue lips, and high cheekbones marked by dark gray lines.

Natural Abilities:

Electrokinesis Abilities:

Electrokinesis - Can create, control and manipulate also generate plasma (electricity).

Electroportation - Is able to move through electricity without getting hurt

Pyro-Plasmic kinesis - Can control plasma and fire only when combined with Lumna

and Hyper Regeneration

Weaknesses:

\- Beings with Electrical Immunity are not affected.

\- Needs a conductor like metal or water to move shocks through with the exception of using her power gloves.

\- Can't use powers in a vacuum (such as outer space).

\- A strong enough magnetic force/source can be beneficial or lethal.

\- Powers become useless if insulated with electrically resistant material, such as rubber or silicate.

\- Has to find electrical sources of power in order to recharge when exhausted or else her chip could melt if she tries to recharge using its power.

\- Has problems using electronics without her gloves on or some kind of power dampener on.

\- Can be short-circuited when in contact with water, a magnet, or the opposite polarity when in use of her powers.

\- If charged with excess electricity, the chip becomes "overloaded" unless energy is discharged and, if left overcharged it can become volatile.

\- Due to the chip in her neck, she must have a least a little bit of electricity in her or the chip releases a toxin that could kill her if there's no electricity to neutralize it.

\- Hyper Regeneration rate varies depending on how much energy she has. ie if she's low on energy, regeneration rate is slow

Made Tech:

Goggles made to help bounty hunt

Hover/magnetic boots

Gloves that can concentrate her natural electrokinesis abilities as well as give Rocket's tech a boost of power.

An electro-generative chip implant in the back of her neck that generates an electric charge to use as energy, but becomes overheated if used too much in a short amount of time, causing immense pain. When drained of energy, the chip releases a toxin that could kill Astra as a safeguard against her disobeying orders and draining all her power to not have to fight.

History:

One day, the planet was invaded by Thanos' army, who, later, wiped out all the people as punishment for trying to send some of their people to escape and some stayed behind to fight back. A few escape pods were launched holding Chrysintheans in each pod, but almost all the escape pods were destroyed, Astra's and her older sister's pods being two exceptions, even though hers was slightly damaged before it managed to go through a wormhole, escaping the Anagoran galaxy, where her home was located in.

After being found floating around in space in her damaged pod after its engine blew, Astra was found by criminal scientists who took her into their space lab. After trying to weaponize her abilities, they planned to use her against their former home planet who had banished them for their illegal research in power implantment and enhancement. However, their lab was breached by Rocket and Groot, who bagged the scientists to turn them in and found Astra aboard. They were able to save her just before she was about to die and decided to take her in as their bounty hunter-in-training, giving her a new name, Joules, JJ for short. Rocket helped to make her a few pieces of tech, goggles, boots, and gloves, that help her to defend herself and Rocket and Groot when bounty hunting and to help her learn to control her electrokinesis abilities.


	2. Gone in a Day

Astra's POV

It was supposed to be a joyous day... My sister, along with all the other fire wielder trainees, would be coming from the training grounds to visit our mother and me when the invaders came instead.

I had been picking flowers as my mother watered them, to decorate our home with to celebrate when the first great shadow crossed the sky.

Before I could even look up at the sky to see the source, my mother picked me up hastily, making me drop the flowers I had been gathering and ran as screams started to sound throughout our village,

"The Leviathans!"

"The Chitauri!"

"Get to the pods!"

"Save yourselves!"

Our planet's warriors began to fight the invaders as they were shot from the flying Leviathans while everyone else began to crowd around the pod launch bay, everyone scrambling to board a pod to escape our imminent doom.

"This way..." My mother clutched me tighter as she hurried to the back of the port where older pod versions were stored. After picking one that looked less outmoded, she activated it, put me in the single-seat, and hugged me, whispering into my ear,

"Find your sister when the time is right." Right before she hit a button to close the window and another to launch my pod. My hands splayed out on the window as I watched my mother gave me one last wave, eyes glimmering with tears.

My pod was launched alongside a dozen others as they exited the atmosphere, some being unfortunate enough to be shot down and destroyed while others were merely grazed and slightly damaged as a gigantic ship was seen just outside of our planet's atmosphere.

Abruptly, a shot hit the front of the window and splintering cracks were starting to spread across the reinforced glass when another shot knocked my pod off course

Just as my pod was about to be shot down, a bright light shone in front of me and my pod was sent zooming through a blindingly, colorful tunnel of stars.

When my pod stopped moving, I was in another galaxy with my pod's window cracking, even more, and I started to panic when some more lights flashed on my pod. The bright light was too much for my eyes to handle as I felt the pod shake around violently. The sudden movements making me slam my head against the side, knocking me unconscious.

I woke up in a small, clear cell wearing some thick gloves made of a hard, slick compound I had never seen on my small hands and wearing a simple gray gown with blue spots on it and shorts underneath, surrounded by beings in white clothing.

When they pushed a button to open the door to the cell, I immediately tried to get away from the beings, but I was grabbed by my hair and strapped down to a shiny table. When I tried to scream for them to let me go, they pulled a muzzle onto my face and jabbed a pointy tool into my neck and I blacked out again.

When I woke up, again, I was tossed into another small, padded cell and I saw, with the one-way mirrors on the door, that they had tattooed the symbols: J75-4 on my neck and from that day on, the scientists, as I later gathered, referred to me by that name, Subject J Seven Five Dash Four.

Two years passed by and I was subjected to painstakingly hard tests every single day to make me stronger and more "fit to be a formidable weapon to destroy those who wronged us" in the words of the scientists who tested and observed me.

I later learned that, when they first captured me, they implanted an electrical-generating chip into my neck to make me more powerful. Unfortunately, it required I have constant energy inside of me or it would kill me with a special toxin that requires electricity to neutralize it, but would overheat and melt if too much energy was in it.

For the first few months, the tests that were subjected to me were fairly easy and I passed all of them and after I finished them, I would watch the scientists create new kinds of technology that I had never seen and I soon began to learn as they continued to create.

As more months passed, though, new tests were created, like obstacle courses that grew more difficult every day in order to test how far my electrokinesis would take me. Other times I would be taught about cultures on other planets and asked questions based on what I've learned.

Unfortunately, still being an inexperienced kid, I would often fail the scientist's tests, which resulted in me being punished by being muzzled and dunked into a tank of water until I was close to drowning or hit with magnetic pulses that made it feel like my insides were being torn apart whenever I was hit.

It seemed this was going to be my life as I began to lose hope of ever escaping this place after five, failed, escape attempts where I would try to short-circuit their security, but, ultimately, failed as I didn't know how to fully control my abilities. However, one day, all that changed...


	3. Rescue

Astra's POV

Another day of testing, where I showed how well I could manipulate generated plasma with my electrokinesis, had concluded, with me barely passing, and another annual haircut where they just chopped my hair off to be barely above my neck, and I was, once again, confined to my tiny padded and electrical-insulated cell.

Just as I was starting to fall asleep with the thin blanket I was provided with, red strobe lights and sirens went off outside and in my cell as I bolted back up, fully awake.

When I looked out the small window kept on my cell's door, I saw the scientists and their workers scramble around with armfuls of paperwork. Even from inside, I was still able to make out what they were saying on the outside,

"We've been breached!"

"Destroy the files!"

"Prepare the escape shuttles!"

But one conversation caught my attention more than the rest,

"What about Subject J75-4?"

"We can't let them find the asset, destroy it!"

I instantly began to panic as the scientist who had been commanded opened my cell and dragged me out.

"Let me go!" I started to shout before the dreaded muzzle was strapped over my face to prevent any more outbursts.

I struggled against the scientist as he dragged me to a huge tube-like enclosure with one window and bound me into place inside by a big strap across my torso, keeping my back to the wall of the tube and my arms were strapped down.

He closed the door and, before I could use my abilities to short-circuit the machine, smoke began to pour into the tube and I felt my powers weaken down to nothing and my throat closed up in reaction to the poisonous fumes.

As my vision started to fade out, I heard the scientists yelled in alarm and grunt in pain as several thuds were heard. Taking this as a sign to be the breachers, I wriggled one arm out and slapped my palm against the window just as everything went dark.

Rocket's POV

"Man, this place is creepy, but it'll be totally worth the units on these nutcases!" I told Groot as he bagged all the fugitives and tossed them in a pile until we could put'em in the cells we have aboard our ship.

"I Am Groot?" (Is it scaring you?)

"No! This place ain't scaring me! I ain't scared of nothin'." I growled and just as I did a slapping noise came from behind me and, from inside a chamber's window, a hand was against the window and slid down slowly leaving a wet mark on the glass.

"What the flarg?!" I scrambled up Groot's shoulder.

"I Am Groot?" (Now are you afraid?)

"I ain't afraid, just a little surprised is all."

"I Am Groot." (We should free whoever's in there)

"I don't want to open that thing, are you nuts?!" but he just gave me the 'really' look.

"Alright fine..." I grumbled as I jumped from Groot's shoulder to the top of the chamber and pushed aside several wires inside a control panel to find the main power cord. After I ripped it out, the power went off in the chamber.

"Alright Groot, do your thing." I stood back with my arms folded and Groot raised his arm and punched through the door to rip it off its hinges and throw it to the side. Inside, there was a young-lookin' kid with an arm dangling in front of it, with a cuff on both its wrists, and the other bound into place, eyes closed, barely breathing through a metal muzzle over its face, and held in place by a strap, wearing a lab gown, a tattoo, and slight bump, on her neck, and chopped off hair.

"C'mon, let's get out of there Groot, leave it in there."

"I Am Groot." (It's a child)

"I can clearly see it's a kid, but I don't want to get too close to it, it might be dangerous if these whack jobs were trying to kill it."

"I Am Groot..." (We can't just leave her in there...)

"Fine, you can free it, then we leave it."

Groot managed to use his hands to wrap around the strap and break it off, after he broke it, the kid fell down and was motionless for a few seconds before violently coughing and spit up some purple looking stuff. Then, it looked up at me and Groot, breathing loudly, with these freaky blue and purple eyes before they closed and it went back down.

"I Am Groot?" (We're not going to leave her here like this, right?)

"'Course not, it's gonna go with the rest of the lab once the charges detonate."

"I Am Groot!" (That's not what I meant!)

"What? You saying we should keep it?" I joked, but Groot looked like he was actually considering it.

"I was just joking, why should we keep it?" I asked in disbelief.

"I Am Groot." (It's a lot like you...)

"Oh don't you play that card Groot! It's nothing like me. *Grrr* just grab it and let's go if it'll make you stop buggin' me about it!" I growled and I turned to leave as Groot picked up the kid and we went back to our ship.

Time Skip

"I still think bringing the kid along was a bad move..." I grumbled as I started our ship towards the planet where the scientist's bounties were gonna be paid and the space lab exploded into oblivion behind us.

"I Am Groot." (Focus on flying) Groot told me as he locked up the criminals in their cells after he had set the kid on a bench seat we have on the bridge, where I was steering us out of the space lab, I left the muzzle on the kid, just in case. It began to move around and opened its freaky eyes to see I was lookin' back at it and started moving against the wall.

"Relax kid, we ain't gonna hurt you." I groaned as it looked at me with wide eyes and placed a hand over the control panel and it instantly started to spark up and blew a fuse that caused the ship's navigation system to go crazy.

"Woah what was that?!" As I turned to it and, somehow, the muzzle was off of its face.

Astra's POV

When I woke up, I found myself lying down on a flat surface with an animal that was called a raccoon on the planet Terra, or Earth as its inhabitants called it, but the strangest thing was that it was steering the ship I was aboard.

Immediately, I suspected that the raccoon was working for the scientists since I still had my muzzle on, so I started to panic before it told me it wasn't going to hurt me.

Shortly after he tried to assure me no harm, I accidentally placed my hand over a panel of metal and it sparked up under my bare hand. When it stopped sparking up, I placed a hand to the muzzle around my face and it dropped away as I short-circuited it.

"Woah what the hell was that?!" It shouted at me before I fell off the place I was on and started to back away, right into something else that looked like a walking tree man.

I gasped in fear and just pushed myself further away from both of them until my back met a wall.

"I Am Groot." The tree man spoke and I understood it as, "We're not going to hurt you."

"Really?" I asked them with a scared tone.

"I Am Groot." (Yes) "Groot" responded with a nod.

"Who are you guys?" I asked curiously as I looked between Groot and the raccoon.

"None of your damn business!" The raccoon yelled and I flinched.

"I Am Groot." (He's Rocket.)

"Rocket? That's a cool name."

"Wait, you can understand Groot?" "Rocket" asked me with disbelief clear in his voice.

"Yes."

"And I'm gonna assume that you frying the navigation controls and short-circuiting your mask is why those scientists had you in that lab in the first place?" He asked nodding toward my tattoo and I nodded in response as he looked at me in thought.

"What's your name kid?"

"Astra."

"Oof.. yeah we might need to change that if you're going to be joining this team."

"What?" I asked, not sure if I heard him correctly.

"I said you're apart of our team now, happy?"

"Yes, thank you Rocket!" I exclaimed as I jumped up and hugged Rocket and he tried to wriggle out, but failed and just let himself be hugged as Groot joined in as well.

"Ok, you all can shove off now!" He grumbled in a muffled tone and I let go, still smiling really hard and the resulting contact from my hands made his fur puff up and I tried to stifle my giggles until I couldn't hold it in anymore.

"What're you laughing at?!" Rocket yelled as he looked at himself on a metal surface and grimaced annoyingly.

"Ok ok, alright!" He shouted smoothing out his fur, " You can control electricity correct?"

"Yes, but I can't control it that well." I answered looking down at my hands.

"That won't be a problem, c'mere." He motioned for me to follow him after he managed to get the navigation back on track and set it to autopilot.

I followed Rocket through a room where all the scientists were awake and started banging on their cell doors as soon as they saw me and started yelling over each other.

"I Am Groot." (They can't hurt you anymore) He told me as he placed a hand on my shoulder and I half-smiled at him.

"They won't be able to hurt anyone after we turn them in. Keep an eye on them will ya?" Groot nodded and stayed behind to watch the scientists.

"Turn them in to where?"

"You see, we bag criminals who do things so bad that someone would pay to have them caught. Me and Groot, we're bounty hunters." He explained as we entered another room that was full of technology that was new to me, even after my time watching the scientists in the lab. Rocket started grabbing things from different places as I wandered around the place.

"What is this?" I asked as I pulled out a strange device that had an end where a hole was located and I peered into the hole.

"Woah woah woah! Don't point that in your face, you idiot, that's a gun!" He yelled pulling the "gun" out of my hands and back on the wall where I pulled it from.

"I'm sorry, I've never seen pieces of technology like these, even in all the lessons that were taught me." I apologized as Rocket went back to rummaging.

"Yeah? Well my workshop is full of guns, so look, but don't touch!" He yelled and dumped all the pieces of tech he was looking for on a long table in the middle of the room and started to assemble something.

"What are you making?" I asked as he rapidly put it together.

"You'll see when I'm done." He bluntly responded so I left him to do his work while I took a few metal sphere halves, small bag-looking pieces, and a few circuit boards. As I did so, an idea popped into my head and I eagerly started putting the pieces together, just as Rocket announced,

"Ok, these should help you not fry everything you tou- what are you doing?" He stopped mid-sentence with a pair of what looked like bracelets with a small, thin, wire that led to flat, circular disks, to see me with my orb creation.

"I-I was just messing around with some scrap metal and made this." I gestured to my spherical creation that easily fit into the palm of my hand.

"Huh, not bad kid.." Rocket replied as he took the sphere and examined it, "What's it do?" I answered his question by taking the orb, curled my fist around it, charging it with my abilities, and threw it to the other side of the room where it attached to the wall and detonated in a mid-sized explosion that blew out the door.

"That explosion was magnificent..." Rocket gaped in awe.

"Really?" I asked hopefully.

"Yeah, you're alright kid, maybe with a little help from me, you'll do pretty good." Rocket told me as he handed me the conveyors and I clamped them onto my wrists with the disks attached to my palms in order to guide my electrical charges

"About a new name..." I started.

"What? You don't want one?"

"No, I actually do, I don't want to remember who I lost when my home was invaded..." I admitted quietly.

"Who'd you lose?"

"My mother... and possibly my sister..."

"Well, you got me and Groot now, Zappy?" Rocket attempted the name and I just shook my head rapidly.

"Watts?" I shook my head no.

"Joules?" I thought about it for a few seconds and nodded a few times.

"Joules it is. Or we'll call you JJ for short. Good?"

"Yes."

"I Am Groot?" Groot poked his head through the blown-out door and looked at the damage in question before saying that we had landed on the planet the fugitives were wanted on.

"Alright, let's head back up to the bridge, yeah?" Rocket started to walk out of the room and I followed behind looking down at Rocket's inventions in wonder.


	4. Almost Discovered

Joules' POV

"What is this planet?" I asked as Groot, Rocket and I followed him back up to the bridge to see a planet in front of us that was colored a bloody red with some dark orange smeared around.

"Don't know don't care. All I know is that the idiots on that planet are called Oajin's. Let's just collect the bounty and get the hell out of here." Rocket answered gruffly as Groot opened up the cells and used his vines to tie all the scientists into a line as he led them out, many of them looking at me with fierce hatred on the way out.

"Me and Groot'll take care of these guys, you stay here."

"But I want t-"

"No! Stay. On. The ship, these people are dangerous to mess with. You can listen in on what we're doing from this comlink." Rocket told me and handed me a small device that fits into my ear.

"Ok..."

"Don't worry, we'll be back. Just stay out of sight 'til then."

"Will do." I responded as I took the comlink, placed it in my ear, and went to sit down in the bridge.

Time Skip

A little while later, Rocket and Groot had met up with whoever they were turning the scientists in to and I started to doze off in the driver's seat of the ship when one of the man's questions startled me awake.

"Were there any test subjects in their lab?"

I could hear Groot trying to say that they found me, in his language, earning panicked responses from me, but that I was staying with them until Rocket cut him off,

"There's no point Groot, these bozos can't understand you and there weren't any, so just give us the bounty so we can get out."

"Is that so? We received a tip that they had a weapon that would destroy us, so where is it?" Another voice butted in.

"Must've gone with the rest of the lab when it went kablooey."

"Very well... take the bounty and leave."

After hearing Rocket and Groot leave wherever they had gone to, Rocket whispered into the com set,

"We're going to grab some supplies, keep an eye on the ship 'til we get back."

"Yes, Rocket."

I took off the comlink and set it down on the armrest of the seat as I got up to explore the bridge. No sooner than I did, I heard something metallic whirring outside of the ship and the screen in front of me pulled up a video feed of some beings, Oajins I had assumed, cutting through the door and coming aboard the ship.

Immediately, I tried to grab the comlink to signal to Rocket, but I accidentally dropped it making the metallic 'clang' echo through the ship.

"I heard something over here!" One of the Oajins yelled to his companions and their footsteps were heard thundering my way.

In panic, I looked around for a hiding spot and found an air shaft above my head, so I gently took the cover off, pulled myself in, giving my right arm a couple of long scratches on the way in, and pulled the cover back on just as I heard the people enter the room.

One came over to the seat I was sitting in before and picked up the comlink I dropped before crushing it in his bare hand in anger.

"It was here."

"The commander said he wanted it alive, it's no use to him as a weapon against our enemies if it's dead." Another voice growled in anger.

"Search the place!" Another voice butted in and they started to go through all of Rocket's stuff in his workshop and in every cell and room that was aboard the ship.

This went on for about 20 minutes and my arms were starting to cramp up from being in the air shaft. I tried to look down from my hiding spot, but I accidentally slid my hand against the metal shaft making it squeak slightly and I saw that one Oajin was under the shaft entrance, about to take off the cover when,

"Hey hey hey! You can't just barge into our ship and tear it apart!" Rocket yelled as he and Groot came aboard and saw the mess that was made.

"I Am Groot!" There was some silence before,

"Apologies, we didn't find the lab rat, so we will leave now..."

"Yeah you better.. before I blow the rest of ya out the window." Rocket growled as the men left and Groot followed to make sure they all left.

When they were all gone, Rocket whispered,

"Hey kid, you alright up there?"

"Truthfully, no..."

"Then let's get out of here." The ship started up and we left the planet with Rocket making sure we weren't being followed.

When it was finally safe to come out, Groot lifted me out of the vents and wrapped my scratched arm that was rimmed with dried, purple blood in green vines since my hyper-regeneration wasn't working too well.

"Did they seriously call you 'lab rat'?" Rocket asked, surprisingly angry.

"Yes..." I responded quietly.

"I Am Groot!" (They were rude!)

"That's just how it's been..."

"Well, luckily we were able to get away before they found you. Here, we managed to find some new clothes for you that we hid with the supplies." Rocket pulled a separate bag out of the first one and gave it to me.

Short Time Skip

A while later, I was dressed in my new clothes: a dark red shirt with a lighter matching skirt and black leggings with a pair of brown boots. I decided to keep the electrical conveyors on the inside of some black gloves that came with the new clothes and I used some sharp-edged pieces of metal to cut off the fingers so that my fingertips and the circular part of the conveyors were exposed and available to use my abilities.

After I finished changing, Rocket showed me to an empty room they had onboard their ship and gave me a "sleeping bag", as it was called, and I placed it in a corner.

"We're heading to another planet to continue huntin' so try and get some sleep, we'll wake you up when we get there." Rocket turned to leave when I asked,

"Rocket?"

"Hmph?"

"There are more who would want to use me as a weapon of mass destruction, you're not going to let them do that to me, are you?" I asked fearfully, scared of what could happen if they did get ahold of me, somehow.

"Nah.. you're better off with me and Groot than those war-raging nutjobs." Rocket responded.

"Promise...?" I asked sleepily as I started to fall asleep and the last thing I heard before being pulled into the darkness was,

"Yeah, I promise..."

Rocket's POV

I got out of JJ's room after she fell asleep, but what she asked was stickin' to me for some reason.

"I Am Groot?" (She's asleep?)

"Yeah, kid's tough, I'll give her that, and you were right." Groot cocked his head waiting for an explanation.

"She is a little like how I was before, alright?" I moaned out and Groot smirked at that.

"I Am Groot?" (Now you admit it.)

"Yeah yeah, let's give her some rest before we land, we're taking her on this next mission." I told him as I took the navigation screen, set the coordinates, and we were off.


	5. Bounty Chase

2 Years Later...

3rd Person POV with Rocket, Groot, and Joules

On Xander, Capital of the Nova Empire, Rocket is watching Xandarians that are passing by as Joules is surveying the area with the new scanner goggles that Rocket helped her make. In addition to the goggles, she also had upgraded her boots with hover and magnetic abilities.

"Xandarians. What a bunch of losers. All of them in a big hurry to get from something stupid to nothing at all. Pathetic." Rocket observed, disgusted, as he looks around with a tablet scanner.

"Look at this guy! Can you believe they call us criminals when he's assaulting us with that haircut?" He comments on a man with short blond hair that's swept to one side.

"What is this thing? Look how it thinks it's so cool. It's not cool to get help! Walk by yourself, you little gargoyle!" Rocket refers to a small child being guided down a small flight of stairs by their parent.

Looking over to an elderly man talking to a young woman with bright red hair, "Look at Mr. Smiles over here. Where's your wife, old man? What a class-A prevert." Rocket starts to laugh, before saying,

"Right, JJ? Groot? Groot?" Rocket and Joules, after pulling her goggles up, look over to see Groot drinking water from a nearby fountain.

"Don't drink fountain water, you idiot. That's disgusting!" Rocket scolds Groot, but he shakes his head 'No' pretending he didn't do it.

"Yes, you did. I just saw you doing it. Why are you lying?"

"That's disgusting." Joules bluntly told him before Rocket's scanner and her goggles start beeping, alerting them of a wanted fugitive sighting.

"Whoop. Looks like we got one." Rocket looks around with his scanner as JJ looks through her goggles at a Terran who was chatting with a pink-skinned Xandarian.

"Okay, humie, how bad does someone wanna find you?"

Joules is able to use her goggles to identify him as Peter Quill, wanted by the leader of a Ravager clan, Yondu, who was also the one to put a huge bounty on him. Rocket, then, announces excitedly,

"Forty thousand units? JJ, Groot, we're gonna be rich." Before he and Joules look over to Groot and see him drinking from the fountain again. Rocket shakes his head as Joules slaps a hand to her forehead.

"OK, here's the plan: we'll wait until he's out in the open, JJ, you paralyze him, and when Groot drops the bag on him, we run outta here to go collect his bounty. JJ, you go hide over there until we need you." Rocket explains to his teammates and they nod in agreement and JJ touches a nearby electric city light to siphon off some of its energy to use as she makes it over to her position.

"I Am Groot." (He's in there now.) Groot points to 'Peter Quill' entering the Broker's shop and the doors close behind him.

"Then we wait until he gets out." Joules mencingly whispers into her comlink as she pulls her goggles down to see the two heat signatures of the Broker and Peter in the building.

Time Skip To Gamora Attacking Peter

"This wasn't the plan." Gamora says just as she's about to bring her weapon down on Peter's head when she's quickly pushed aside by Rocket.

"Put him in the bag. Put him in the bag!" Rocket refers to Peter, but Groot extends his roots out and grabs Gamora instead,

"No! Not her, him! Learn genders, man." While struggling to stay on top of her head, Gamora yell before she bites his paws, "Biting? That's not fair!"

Meanwhile, JJ was sending shockwaves through the metal in the ground to try and shock Peter as he fled with a metal orb in his hand, but he dodges the wave and it hits a street light, making the light post spark up before it slightly melts out of place.

Behind her, Rocket is struggling to stay on top of Gamora's head while yelling, "Take it easy!", but she manages to rip her arms free of Groot's branches and throw Rocket off her head into another electric map guide.

Joules attempts to block her from pursuing Peter by preparing her gloves for a paralyzing zap, but Gamora swiftly kicks her in the stomach before she could, making her fall and land on her back as Gamora picks up a piece of metal and throws it at the hand Peter was grasping the orb in.

He drops the orb and it rolls off the balcony, landing on the sidewalk below and Gamora jumps over a few tables to get down, sheathes her sword as she lands on the ground below, scoops up the orb, and begins to run off.

Just as she tries to get away, Peter leaps off the same balcony, landing on top of her, and they briefly roll before she lands on top of him and straddled him.

"Fool. You should have learned." Gamora says before Peter replies,

"I don't learn. One of my issues." Just as he grabs the orb from her hand, attached one of his rocket boot boosters onto her side, and presses a button on his leg to send her shooting off toward a water fountain.

Tossing the orb into the air, smirking, Peter doesn't hear Groot behind him as he places a bag over his head and hauls the bag up onto his shoulder as Peter yells muffled from inside, "What the..."

"Quit smiling, you idiot. You're supposed to be a professional." Rocket tells Groot before he does a double-take, "You gotta be kidding me." Gamora walks over sword drawn.

"Hey!" Rocket protests after he tried to grab his gun off his back, but was pushed over.

"Oh no you don't..." JJ glares as she attempted to block her again by using her hover boots to quickly avoid Gamora's attacks, but is swept off her hovering position after a quick swipe was delivered to her arms as they crossed over her face to shield from an attack back onto the ground, cutting them in the process.

Gamora, then, starts to hack at Groot with her sword, cutting off his arms in the process, before sheathing it to open the bag. No sooner than she did, Peter used his blaster to shock Gamora and, while she was writhing on the ground, he made a run for it.

"What do you say Rocket?" JJ created a few sparks in her hands as Rocket pulls the gun off his back and says,

"I live for the simple things. Like how much this is gonna hurt." He aims it and, as he's doing so, JJ winces as she touches it to give it a major boost of power.

When Rocket fired it, a sphere of electricity shot out and hit Peter in the back making him fall to the ground and yell in agony.

"Heh heh heh...Yeah. Writhe, little man." Rocket chuckles as he looks over at JJ, who's wrapping her forearms in tape, and Groot, who's whimpering sadly about his severed arms before Rocket says,

"It'll grow back, you D'ast idiot. Quit whining." Just as he said it, golden beams went off around him and Groot, capturing them in magnetic rays.

JJ was left on the ground where she was tackled down by two officers and had an electrical dampening collar put around her neck as she struggled against them.

"Subject 89P13, drop your weapon." A Nova Corp officer commanded from his ship.

"Oh, crap." Rocket groans as he drops his gun.

"By the authority of the Nova Corps, you are under arrest." The same Nova Corp officer says as Peter is being brought up by two more officers.

"Alright. Come on up." Corpsman Dey says as he and another officer lift Peter from the ground as the charges are read from the background,

"...for endangerment to life and the destruction of property."

"Hey! If it isn't Star-Prince." Dey says to Peter.

"Star-Lord." Peter groans in defeat.

"Oh, sorry. Lord. I picked this guy up a while back for petty theft. He's got a code name." He says to his partner as he and JJ are being escorted at the same time next to each other.

"Come on, man. It's a...it's an outlaw name."

"Just relax, pal. It's cool to have a code name. It's not that weird."

"And if it isn't J75-4." The other corpsman said to JJ.

"It's Joules now." She grumbled flatly.

"Oh, that's _so_ much better, being named after a measure of electrical energy." The man started laughing as JJ sent him a death glare.

"Fascists." JJ heard Rocket mutter, and she silently agreed with him, as an unconscious Gamora was brought up beside him and Groot.

Later At the Nova Corp Headquarters

"Well, some good news. Looks like we've apprehended one of Ronan's compatriots." Denarian Saal reports in to Nova Prime as she finished up a, not so good, conversation with a Kree leader.

"Gamora. Surgically modified and trained as a living weapon. The adopted daughter of the Mad Titan, Thanos. Recently, Thanos lent her and her sister Nebula out to Ronan, which leads us to believe that Thanos and Ronan are working together." Dey announced to Saal as each of the fugitives are being scanned and wrap sheets are being brought up.

"Subject 89P13. Calls itself Rocket. The result of illegal genetic and cybernetic experiments on a lower life form." As his description is being read, he spits on the floor in annoyance.

"What the h*ll?" Saal says suspicion.

"They call it Groot. A humanoid plant that's been traveling recently as 89P13's personal houseplant slash muscle." Groot gets closer to the window to look at Dey and Saal through it.

"Subject J75-4, more commonly known as Joules, known to be one of the last of the Chrysinthean species after their entire planet was wiped out along with its people. She's been an apprentice bounty hunter-in-training for 89P13 and has been known to possess electrokinetic and hyper-regeneration abilities." Joules made their point on the last piece of info when she unraveled the tape from around her forearms, dropped them onto the floor, revealing that her wounds were completely healed, and just stands with her arms crossed as she looks at the two men through the glass with a look of annoyance of using her lab name as her primary name.

"Peter Jason Quill, from Terra. Raised from youth by a band of mercenaries called the Ravagers, led by Yondu Udonta."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know how this machine worked." Peter apologizes as he winds up his middle finger like a music box.

"What a bunch of a-holes." Saal says flatly as Dey smiles a bit.

"Transport all four to the Kyln."


	6. The Kyln

Joules' POV

"I guess most of Nova Corps wanna uphold the laws, but these ones here, they're corrupt and cruel. But, hey, that's not my problem. I ain't gonna be here long. I've escaped 22 prisons, this one's no different. You're lucky the broad showed up, because otherwise, me, JJ, and Groot would be collecting that bounty right now, and you'd be getting drawn and quartered by Yondu and those Ravagers." Rocket says to Peter Quill as all five of us, including, me, Groot and Gamora, are being guided down a hallway to the detainment area.

"I've had a lot of folks try to kill me over the years. I ain't about to be brought down by a tree, a kid, and a talking raccoon." Peter boasted.

"I ain't a kid…" I grumbled under my breath.

"Hold." The prison guard leading them stopped at a locked door.

"What's a raccoon?" Rocket asked.

"'What's a raccoon?' It's what you are, stupid." Peter retorted back.

"Ain't no thing like me, except me."

"Ain't nothing in the universe but us." I repeated what Rocket told them and he just scoffed.

"I don't need no echo JJ."

"Pft whatever…" I examined my cuffs to see if there was a way to disarm them.

"So, this orb has a real shiny blue suitcase, Ark of the Covenant, Maltese Falcon sort of vibe. What is it?" Peter asked out of nowhere.

"I am Groot..." (Something bad...)

"So what? What's the Orb?"

"I have no words for an honorless thief." Gamora replied flatly.

"Pretty high and mighty coming from the lackey of a genocidal maniac." Rocket taunted as Gamora looked back at him.

"Yeah, I know who you are. Anyone who's anyone knows who you are."

"Yeah, we know who you are. Who is she?" Peter said, directing the last part quietly to Groot

"I am Groot." (Daughter of Thanos)

"Yeah, you said that."

"Recently, she's been working for Ronan." I told him.

"I wasn't retrieving the orb for Ronan, I was betraying him. I had an agreement to sell it to a third party." Gamora explained.

"I am Groot."

"Well, that's just as fascinating as the first 89 times you told that. What is wrong with Giving Tree, here?" Peter asked.

"Well, he don't know talking good like me and you. So his vocabulistics is limited to "I" and "am" and "Groot". Exclusively in that order." Rocket told him emphasizing the last part.

"Only me and Rocket can understand him dummy." I told him quietly in a half lidded glare.

"I tell you what, that's gonna wear real thin, real fast." Peter started to say before he noticed that a guard had a strange yellow box with wires coming out of it and started to get mad,

"Hey. Put that away." Peter stepped into the room the guard was in just as its door closed.

"Hey! Take those headphones off. That's mine. Those belong to impound. That tape and that player is mine!" The guard came over and electrocuted Peter with a rod, but he continued to persist,

"Hooked on a Feeling, Blue Swede, 1973. That song belongs to me!" He was interrupted by another shock.

As Gamora, Groot, Rocket, and I watched Peter getting electrocuted again, I tried to use my abilities, despite the collar, yet it failed and the collar tightened around my neck, cutting off my air. The guard that was leading us before came over and grabbed my arm roughly before speaking to the guard who was electrocuting Peter,

"Not around this one!" Gesturing to the electric rod in his hand.

"She goes separate." The other guard said bluntly as I was dragged away to a separate room.

There, I was sprayed down with a cold yellow liquid, unlike the orange decontaminant "normal" prisoners were sprayed down with, and given a yellow prison shirt, pants, and some brown shoes instead of my boots.

I was pushed out in time to catch up with Rocket, Groot, Peter, and Gamora as they had blankets shoved into their chests and we made our way into the containment area where there were tons of prisoners and all of them started throwing things and yelling,

"You first! You first!"

"Murderer!"

"Coming for you first, Gamora!"

"You're dead!"

"You're scum!"

"You're scum!"

"It's like I said, she's got a rep. A lot of prisoners here have lost their families to Ronan and his goons. She'll last a day, tops." Rocket told Peter as we followed behind him into the area.

"Murderer!" Another prisoner yelled out.

"The guards will protect her, right?" Peter asked, looking the tiniest bit concerned.

"They're only here to stop us from escaping." I groaned looking around at the guards as they went about their business.

"They don't care what we do to each other inside." Rocket finished my statement.

"Whatever nightmares the future holds, are dreams compared to what's behind me." Gamora said as Peter turned around and came face to face with a giant, blue-skinned being.

"Check out the new meat. I'm gonna slather you up in Gunavian jelly, and go to town..." He said talking to Peter while stroking his face with his hand just before Groot came over and stuck his fingers up his nose, growing his vines out inside his head as Rocket announced

"Let's make something clear. This one here is our booty! You wanna get to him, you go through us! Or, more accurately, we go through you." Groot dropped the guy onto the ground where he lay holding his nose, sobbing in pain.

"I'm with them." Peter tried to say casually and I rolled my eyes before starting to follow them before a guard came over and grabbed my arm saying,

"Not you." And he led me over to the same cell Gamora was in and shoved me in, making me fall to the ground inside.

After the guard left, I got up and saw that Gamora was sitting on the bench, trying to ignore the yells of the prisoners outside.

"I hate you!"

"No cell's gonna protect you for long!"

"You're dead! Dead!"

Eventually, they left, and Gamora asked me,

"Why did they put you in here?"

"Don't know don't care."

I just shrugged as I went to sit in the corner and hugged my knees to my chest until I fell asleep.

_Later that Night_

My sleep was full of nightmares. One minute my planet was being destroyed along with my mother in front of my eyes again. The next minute I was back in the outlaw lab, having to endure all the tedious and excruciatingly painful tasks that were demanded of me.

Just as I was trying to mentally shake myself back awake, my eyes shot open just as a prisoner hauled me up by my arms as some more were dragging Gamora out of our cell with the one holding me following them.

"Leave her alone! She has nothing to do with this!" Gamora yelled at the prisoner holding me.

"Take her down to the showers. It'll be easier to clean up the blood down there. And get rid of this one while you're at it." The same guard that threw me into this cell was saying as two prisoners were holding Gamora with a knife over her throat and another held me with my arms and a knife twisted behind my back.

"Gamora, consider this a death sentence for your crimes against the galaxy." The prisoner with the knife to Gamora's throat started to say before,

"You dare?" We turned and saw another prisoner who had gray skin with red markings. I instantly recognized him as Drax the Destroyer from the reports I've read about him in the two years I'd been bounty hunting with Rocket and Groot.

"You know who I am, yes?" He asks the prisoner with the knife.

"Y-you're Drax. T-the Destroyer." He stammers out.

"Quill!" I hear Rocket whisper harshly and I see him and Peter sneaking towards us. As soon as Rocket sees I'm involved, his eyes widen, but doesn't come out from the shadows.

"And you know why they call me this." Drax asks.

"You slayed dozens of Ronan's minions." The prisoner responds back, slightly nervous.

"Ronan murdered my wife, Ovette, and my daughter, Camaria. He slaughtered them where they stood. And he laughed!" Everyone flinched at how he yelled the last part of his sentence before he continued,

"Her life is not yours to take. He killed my family. I shall kill one of his in return."

"Of course, Drax. Here, I..." The prisoner says presenting his knife to him before Gamora twists herself out of the grip of the prisoner holding her and grabs both their knives and holds them to their throats.

"I'm no family to Ronan or Thanos. I'm your only hope at stopping him." Gamora says just before Drax pushes her against the wall with his hand around her neck and I struggled to free myself to help her. Sure she was a goon for Ronan, but she tried to help me earlier and I'd be damned if I didn't at least try to help her out

"Woman, your words mean nothing to me! -"

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey! You know, if killing Ronan is truly your sole purpose, I don't think this is the best way to go about it." Peter comes out from hiding and confronts Drax before he could kill Gamora.

"Are you not the man this wench attempted to kill?"

"Well, I mean, she's hardly the first woman to try and do that to me. Look, this is from a smoking-hot Rajak girl. Stabbed me with a fork. Didn't like me skipping out on her at sunrise. I got, right here, a Kree girl tried to rip out my thorax. She caught me with this skinny little A'askavariian who worked in Nova Records. I was trying to get information. You ever see an A'askavariian? They have tentacles, and needles for teeth. If you think I'm seriously interested in that, then... You don't care. But here's the point. She betrayed Ronan. He's coming back for her. And when he does, that's when you..." He rambles before making a slicing motion with his finger across his throat.

"Why would I put my finger on his throat?"

"What? No, it's a symbol. This is a symbol for you slicing his throat."

"I would not slice his throat. I would cut his head clean off."

"It's a general expression for you killing somebody. You've heard of this. You've seen this, right? You know what that is." Peter asks the prisoner who had the knife before.

"Yeah. Yeah."

"Everyone knows." Peter added as Drax gives the prisoner a dark look.

"No, no..."

"What I'm saying is, you want to keep her alive. Don't do his work for him." Peter manages to convince Drax and he drops Gamora from where he had held her against the wall.

"I like your knife. I'm keeping it." Drax pockets the knife and the prisoner whispers,

"That was my favorite knife."

"And release the child." Drax adds to the prisoner who's still holding me and he finally lets me go. I run to catch up with Peter, Gamora, and Rocket after I gave him a grateful nod.

As soon as Rocket sees me, he starts checking to make sure I didn't have any injuries from the prisoners and repeatedly asking if I was alright.

"I'm fine Rocket, quit being such a worrier." I tell him as he goes near-hysterical about a new cut on my shoulder that was already starting to heal. When he realizes that he was overreacting he straightens up and coughs a little.

"Listen! I could care less whether you live or whether you die." Peter yells to Gamora as she's storming ahead of him coming towards us.

"Then why stop the big guy?" She retorts angrily.

"Simple. You know where to sell my Orb."

"How are we gonna sell it when we and it are still here?"

"My friends Rocket and JJ, here, have escaped 22 prisons." Peter motions over to me and Rocket.

"Since when did we become friends? And it's Joules to you." I snap at him.

"Oh, we're getting out. And then we're headed straight to Yondu to retrieve your bounty." Rocket says as Peter breathes through his nose and asks Gamora,

"How much was your buyer willing to pay you for my Orb?"

"Four billion units." She responds after hesitating.

"What?" Rocket exclaims.

"Holy sh..." Peter starts to say before Gamora cuts him off,

"That Orb is my opportunity to get away from Thanos and Ronan. If you free us, I'll lead you to the buyer directly and I'll split the profit between the four of us."

"I am Groot." (Hey.) Groot peeks out at us from the cell door.

"Five of us. Asleep for the danger, awake for the money, as per frickin' usual." Rocket says sarcastically.

"You really do need to work on your timing buddy." I tell Groot and I groan as he starts asking me about the cut.


	7. Escape Time

AN- Sorry if updates are really slow for the few of you who've been reading my story, but I've been having a lot of school work piling up

Joules' POV

"If we're gonna get out of here, we're gonna need to get into that watchtower. And to do that, I'm gonna need a few things. The guards wear security bands to control their ins and outs. I need one." Rocket started to explain to me, Groot, Gamora, and Peter as we got our "food" from the cafeteria.

"Leave it to me." Gamora told him.

"That dude, there. I need his prosthetic leg." As soon as he said that, I knew he was kidding, but decided to go along with it.

"His leg?"

"Yeah. And finally, on the wall back there is a black panel. Blinky yellow light. Do you see it?" Rocket motioned to said panel by nodding his head towards it.

"Yeah."

"There's a quarnyx battery behind it. The main power source for the security system in this place." I explained as we got to our table.

"Purplish box, green wires. To get into that watchtower, I definitely need it." Rocket finished explaining.

"How are we supposed to do that?" Gamora asked.

"Well, supposably, these bald-bodies find you attractive. So, maybe you can work out some sort of trade."

"You must be joking."

"No, I really heard they find you attractive."

"Look, it's 20 feet up in the air, and it's in the middle of the most heavily guarded part of the prison. It's impossible to get up there without being seen." Peter points out and I roll my eyes at how he's stating a very obvious fact.

"I got one plan, and that plan requires a quarnyx battery, so figure it out!" Rocket yells the last part in emphasis, "Can I get back to it? Thanks. Now, this is important. Once the battery is removed, everything is gonna slam into emergency mode. Once we have it, we gotta move quickly, so you definitely need to get that last." Rocket was cut off by red strobe lights and alarms going off.

When we turned around we saw Groot standing under an open panel and holding out the quarnyx battery to us with a smile.

"Or we could just get it first and improvise." Rocket exasperated.

"I'll get the armband." Gamora stated.

"Leg." Peter said and Rocket pulled at his fur in stress as they both went off the get the thing we need, and one unnecessary part, when flying drones started to surround Groot.

"C'mon, let's give Groot a hand." I tapped Rocket's arm with the back of my hand as picked up a lunch tray before running to him, dodging prisoners who were running back to their cells at the sound of the alarms.

"Prisoner, drop the device immediately and retreat to your cell, or we will open fire." The guard in the watchtower ordered. Groot just grew out his branches and vines and yelled,

"I am Groot!"

"Fire!" All the drones started shooting at Groot from all directions as the same guard told all the other prisoners,

"All prisoners return to your sleeping areas."

I was deflecting gunshots away using the lunch tray as I noticed Rocket making his way over to me and Groot, avoiding as much gunfire as he could, before scampering up Groot's shoulder as he yelled at him,

"You idiot! How am I supposed to fight these things without my stuff?"

"Do you think you could at least get this collar off of me so I can fight?" I asked them as Groot blocked a drone's rapid-fire with a branch shield after a gunshot completely melted the metal lunch tray, surprised it lasted this long.

"Sorry kid, we gotta wait till we're in the watchtower to unlock that thing."

"The animal is in control." A guard declared as more armed guards followed behind him as I watched them ready their guns for firing, "Fire on my command!"

Suddenly, Drax came in and started beating up guards left and right before grabbing two guns off the knocked out guards.

"Child and creepy little beast!" Rocket turned his attention towards Drax just as he threw the two guns to me and Rocket and as soon as he caught the gun in his paws he says,

"Oh, yeah." And starts to fire at every drone that comes our way as he and Groot yell like maniacs and I shoot down any drones that try to hit them from behind.

"Kid, go help get the armband." Rocket told me after he emptied out the gun he was given and I nodded, giving him my gun to use. I ran over to another part of the prison to see that Gamora was beating up multiple guards at once before locking one's arm in place using her leg with the security band exposed.

"I'll need this."

"Good luck. It's internally wired." The guard smiled in triumph.

"I'll figure something out." She told him as she pushed her leg down harshly to where the guard's arm snapped out of his socket as he passed out. Gamora was extracting the security band from the dismembered arm when she finally noticed me standing in front of her with an excitedly horrified look on my face.

"What are you doing here?"

"I was told to help you get the band, but apparently you have that covered. Dang.." I smiled in admiration at how Gamora handled that guard.

"Let's move." Gamora ordered and we ran back towards the main containment area.

"Rocket!" Rocket caught the security band when Gamora threw it to him just after he ran out of ammunition in the gun I gave him earlier. He began to assemble something using the quarnyx battery and the security band and I could practically hear him humming to himself as he worked from Groot's shoulder before yelling out,

"Move to the watchtower!" Gamora and I ran over to the edge of the walkway we were on and she jumped over to the walkway that was connected to the watchtower as Groot grew his branches up to where Rocket could climb up and Peter was following behind with the leg under his chin.

"Look out!" I pointed to a drone that flew towards him and was about to fire when Drax jumped on top of it and destroyed it.

"You!" He yelled to Peter, "Man who has lain with an A'askavariian!"

"It was one time, man." He grumbled as he continued climbing up Groot's body like a ladder and Drax was behind him.

"Alright, here goes..." I whispered to myself as I got up on the edge of the railing and leaped towards the walkway, but grabbed the railing on the other side with one hand that was rapidly slipping.

Luckily, Groot was able to retract an arm from the walkway quickly enough to where caught my arm before I could fall and hauled me up over the railing.

"Thanks bud." I patted Groot's shoulder twice before helping him up onto the walkway to the watchtower.

We made it up just as the guard inside the watchtower was calling in,

"We need all available guards in full combat gear..." He trailed off as he saw us at the entrance of the tower and stepped away from the console where Groot grabbed him with his vines and threw him out, literally.

"Spare me your foul gaze, woman." Drax told Gamora as she noticed he was here with us.

"Why is this one here?"

"We promised him he could stay by your side until he kills your boss. I always keep my promises, when they're to muscle-bound whack-jobs who will kill me if I don't. Here you go." Peter replied to her as he placed the leg on the desk next to Rocket.

"I was just kidding about the leg. I just need these two things." Rocket gestured to the security band and the quarnyx battery on the console panel in front of him.

"What?"

"No, I thought it'd be funny. Was it funny? Wait, what did he look like hopping around?" Rocket asked with excited anticipation.

"I had to transfer him 30,000 units!" Both Rocket and I silently laughed at that.

"How are we going to leave?" Drax asked just as a prison drone came up to the window next to him and started shooting. Fortunately, the glass was holding up, for now

"We might want to hurry this up, Rocket." I say as I help Rocket hack into the prison's system.

"Well, they've got a plan. Right? Or is that another thing you made up?" Peter directly the last part to Rocket.

"I have a plan! I have a plan!"

"Cease your yammering and relieve us from this irksome confinement." Drax says impatiently.

"Yeah, I'll have to agree with the walking thesaurus on that one." Peter says and Drax gives him a death glare.

"Do not ever call me a thesaurus."

"It's just a metaphor, dude."

"His people are completely literal. Metaphors are gonna go over his head." Rocket explains hurriedly as he continues to hack the system and I try to disable the drones remotely, but get shut out by the firewall.

"Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it." Drax declares proudly.

"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." Gamora says.

"You and me both sister..." I muttered looking back at her in annoyance, but before I could resume my work I see the reinforcements filing into the area below wielding larger guns.

"Those are some big guns." Peter points out and I roll my eyes again at his obvious-to-see statements.

"On my command! Number one!" The leader of the troop yells and one soldier shoots at the windows, managing to crack them a bit.

"Rodent, we are ready for your plan." Gamora snaps at Rocket as he finished hacking into the prison's system.

"Hold on!" He yelled back as he pushed the leg off the console.

"Number two!" The leader yells and the second soldier fires and hits the glass.

"I recognize this animal. We'd roast them over a flame pit as children. Their flesh was quite delicious." Drax directs to Rocket and he yells back,

"Not helping!"

"Number three!" The leader yelled as the third shot came at the window closest to me. I whimpered a bit as covered my face when a few pieces of glass fell from the point of impact.

"All fire on my command! Three! Two! One!" Rocket jammed two wires together and the troop, their leader, and all the prisoners in their cells started to float around as the gravity was turned off.

"You turned off the artificial gravity, everywhere but in here." Gamora observed sounding vaguely impressed.

"I told you I had a plan." Rocket stated proudly as I finally hacked the firewall protecting the drones to where we could remotely pilot the drones to attach to the watchtower as Rocket made it dislodge from its base.

"Fly us out of here kid." Rocket told me and I smiled at how he was letting me do it.

"Finally I get to have some fun." I responded as I pulled down a lever to boost the drone's blasters and I began to direct them to fly the watchtower down to a locked door that Rocket pulled a lever to open. We made it into the hallway, after a guard got stuck to the front window, but slid off after a few seconds, where it got a bit cramped as the drones started to get knocked off and we crashed just outside of impound.

"That was a pretty good plan." Peter admitted and Rocket scoffed while raising his arms in a 'told you so' manner.

"Back to escaping now." I reminded him and he frowned at me as he pushed a button and my collar broke away and the pieces fell to the ground. I began to rub the sore, raw markings on my neck left from the collar, when Peter started to kick the glass out of the frame and we made it into the impound area, where we began to grab our stuff.

"Yeah! There it is. Get my ship. It's the Milano, the orange and blue one over in the corner." Peter pointed to said ship that was in the spaceships section of impound.

"They crumpled my pants up into a ball. That's rude! They folded yours." Rocket complained to Drax as he got his jumpsuit out of his container and I grabbed my clothes, boots, goggles, and quickly pulled on my gloves right after I grabbed them.

"The Orb's there. Let's go." I heard Gamora say as Peter grabbed his belongings before he started to panic,

"Wait, wait, wait."

"What?"

"That bastard didn't put it back."

"Put what back?"

"Here. Get them to the ship. I will be right back."

"How are you gonna possibly..."

"Just keep the Milano close by. Go. Go!" Peter held his clothes and weapons in his arms as he left the room and I looked at Gamora in question before we ran to catch up with Rocket, Groot, and Drax as they boarded Peter's ship. Rocket began to pilot the ship out when Gamora stopped him right outside of the Kyln.

"Well, how's he gonna get to us?" He asked and Gamora replied,

"He declined to share that information with me."

"Well, screw this, then! I ain't waiting around for some humie with a death wish. You got the Orb, right?"

"Yes." Gamora started to say right before she pulled out a bunch of wrappers from inside the bag Peter gave her to find that the Orb wasn't in there.

"Of course he'd take the one thing that would guarantee that we wouldn't leave him behind." I moaned before Rocket yelled,

"If we don't leave now, we will be blown to bits."

"No! We're not leaving without the Orb." Gamora told him with a voice of steel.

"If we don't get out of here soon, we won't be leaving with our lives." I told her and she just glared at me to be quiet.

"Behold." Drax lifted his arm to indicate a figure flying towards us. It was Peter with his mask on and Gamora, Drax, and I made it down to a launch port that leads to the bottom of the outside of the ship where he came up through the hatch from the vacuum of space.

"This one shows spirit. He shall make a keen ally in the battle against Ronan. Companion, what were you retrieving?" Drax asked as he and Gamora lifted him into the ship and Peter handed the strange yellow box with wires that he got upset about before.

"You're an imbecile." He states and I just think to myself,

Ya think?


	8. Goin' Knowhere

Joules' POV

We were on board Peter's ship, the Milano, heading to Gamora's buyer's location, but Rocket and I got bored real quick.

So he decided to try and build a bomb from some parts of the Milano and I decided to use the magnetic function of my boots to attach to the ceiling and hang upside down to retrieve parts from the ceiling structure to hand to Rocket.

Meanwhile, I was working on perfecting my orb creation, even after two years. I managed to create a remote-detonation code that would connect the orbs to the screens implanted in my gloves, but it wasn't fully connecting wirelessly as I'd hoped.

After I charged up the orb to test it out, I felt the veins in my wrists constrict painfully before loosening again. I looked at them from under my gloves to see they were turning a dark purplish gray color, meaning I was running low on energy and soon the chip's poison would be making its way through my system.

"Kid, can you give me a hand here? I need to charge this thing." Rocket asked.

"Runnin' low here." I gesture to my neck just before Peter came storming in yelling at Rocket,

"Yo, Ranger Rick! What are you doing? You can't take apart my ship without asking me! See, what is this?" Peter yelling at Rocket, ignoring the fact that I was hanging upside down from his ship's ceiling, and the last question was directed to what he was making.

"Don't touch that! It's a bomb." Rocket warned.

"A bomb?"

"Yup."

"And you leave it lying around?"

"I was gonna put it in a box." Rocket said as he pulled open a drawer to reveal a small, colorful box tied up with a little blue ribbon in a bow.

"What's a box gonna do?"

"How about this one?" Rocket took the small present out.

"No!" Peter kicked the hand with the present in it to where the box went back into the drawer and he kicked it shut.

"Hey!"

"Leave it alone."

"Why? What is it?"

"Shut up."

"What is that?" Peter asked about the other bomb Rocket was making.

"That's for if things get really hardcore. Or if you wanna blow up moons." Rocket replied.

"No one's blowing up moons." Gamora told him from behind us.

"You just wanna suck the joy out of everything." Rocket muttered as he began to connect some more pieces together. I crossed my arms upside down and that's when Peter finally noticed my position and questioned out loud,

"What are you doing up there?!"

"Trying to find a power source..." I told him blatantly. He looked away with a face that just screamed 'why did I get stuck with these wackos' before turning to Gamora,

"So, listen, I'm gonna need your buyer's coordinates." As everyone started to gather around a table that had the Orb on it.

"We're heading in the right direction. For now."

"If we're gonna work together, you might try trusting me a little bit."

"And how much do you trust me?"

"I'd trust you a lot more if you told me what this was. Because I'm guessing it's some kind of weapon." Peter picked up the Orb and motioned it to her.

"I don't know what it is." Gamora took it from Peter and placed it back on the table, where Drax picked it up.

"If it's a weapon, we should use it against Ronan." He stated and Gamora proceeded to yell at him,

"Put it down, you fool. You'll destroy us all."

"Or just you, murderess!"

"I let you live once, princess!"

"I am not a princess!"

"Hey! Nobody is killing anybody on my ship! We're stuck together until we get the money." Peter interrupted their bickering before it could escalate any more.

"I have no interest in money." Drax tossed the Orb back to Peter, who managed to catch it.

"Great. That means more money for the four of us." Peter negotiated before Groot came in and was hurt we'd forgotten about him again.

"For the five of us. Partners."

"We have an agreement, but I would never be partners with the likes of you. I'll tell the buyer we're on our way. And Quill, your ship is filthy." Gamora told Peter before she went up to the cockpit.

"She has no idea. If I had a black light, the place would look like a Jackson Pollock painting." Peter said looking around his ship with a look of amusement on his face.

"You got issues, Quill." Rocket flatly told him.

"Why don't we just see for ourselves?" I asked as I grabbed a small, open-ended glass tube and held it between my hands as some ultraviolet photons flowed between my gloved hands and it created a black light. Sure enough, the whole ship was covered in blotches of every kind of color imaginable.

"That's seriously disgusting, Quill." I started to say before the makeshift blacklight started to fizzle out and I dropped the tube as my veins had turned even darker and I could feel the lack of electricity in me.

"You alright?" Peter asked me cautiously as I gripped my wrists.

"Yeah, I just... need to charge." I told Peter before flipping down from the ceiling, hovering right above the floor before landing on my feet.

"What is she, a cyborg?" I could hear Quill asking Rocket, but didn't hear his response as I entered the cockpit.

There, I found Gamora directing the ship towards her buyer's destination and I carefully snuck behind her to access the panel of metal that indicated that there was high voltage underneath it. I carefully took the panel off and touched my hand to the wires underneath. As soon as I did, a rush of energy flowed into me and a few sparks came popping out catching Gamora's attention.

"What are you doing?" She demanded while silently reaching for her blade as she got out of the seat.

"Relax, I just needed to recharge." I responded motioning to my hands and she just looked more confused so I let a few sparks of electricity snap above my fingers to show her what I meant. After I did so, she just nodded once to show she understood. I turned to leave when I stopped and asked, still facing away from Gamora,

"Hey, why did you try to help me back in prison?" Turning back around, Gamora paused a second to think before answering with,

"Because you're innocent and didn't deserve to suffer for my crimes..."

"That doesn't sound like something a daughter of Thanos would say." I told her suspiciously.

"Because I am no daughter of Thanos," Gamora steeled as she lowered her blade, "He took me from my homeworld after he wiped out half of my people and raised me to be his living weapon of destruction."

"At least your planet got lucky..." I whispered sadly as I sat down on the bench in front of the panel I had just drained.

"What do you mean?" Gamora questioned genuinely concerned.

"Thanos and his army wiped out my whole planet... everybody was just..." I bit my lip to stem tears that were welling up before continuing, "killed... I barely escaped with my life and have no idea if my sister was as lucky as me or if she joined my mom." I fingered a scar on my shoulder I had received from when my pod was damaged and I was thrown against the damaged wall. Gamora noticed this and came over to sit next to me.

"Everyone has a nightmare they'd rather not face, it is us who decides just how long we can run from it."

There was a tense silence right before I took a deep breath and broke the silence with,

"Well, on that heavy note, Imma go see how Rocket's doing." I started to hurry down the stairs, pausing a moment to whisper a quick 'thanks for listening' to Gamora before continuing down.

Time Skip to Knowhere

"Heads up! We're inbound." Gamora announced to everyone and we all gathered in the cockpit to see a giant head floating in space.

"What is it?" Peter questioned.

"It's called Knowhere. The severed head of an ancient celestial being. Be wary headed in, rodent. There are no regulations whatsoever here." Gamora responded as Rocket piloted the ship.

"Sounds like this could be interesting." I commented, joking mildly, but it went unheard as we entered the gigantic, floating, space head.

After we landed and left the ship, we could see there were flying pods zipping around and people stirring giant vats of yellow liquid as well as other odd tasks around inside the Celestial's head.

"Ugh nasty..." I grimaced at the things that were being harvested around the inside of the head.

"Hundreds of years ago, the Tivan Group sent workers in to mine the organic matter within the skull. Bone, brain tissue, spinal fluid. All rare resources, highly valued in black markets across the galaxy. It's dangerous and illegal work, suitable only for outlaws." Gamora continued to explain as we walked through the streets full of people who lived and worked inside the head.

"Well, I come from a planet of outlaws. Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, John Stamos." Peter bragged before Drax responded,

"It sounds like a place, which I would like to visit."

"Yeah, you should."

"Excuse me." A group of little kids dressed in dirty and torn clothes came running up to us.

"Watch your wallets." Peter warned us.

"Can you spare any units?" I turned around to see that Groot had grown a small blue flower in the middle of his palm for a little girl that came up to him to give to her.

Another child asked me for some money so I relented and dug around in my pockets, found a small cloth bag that I used as a wallet, and opened it to hand the kids a few units each.

"Get out of here." Peter finally ran out of patience and told the kids before they ran off.

"Your buyer's in there?" Rocket asked skeptically.

"We are to wait here for his representative." Gamora responded

"Get out of here!" We saw who we assumed to be the owner, literally, throw a person out of the bar.

"This is no respectable establishment. What do you expect us to do while we wait?" Drax questioned and the next thing I know, we're inside the bar surrounding a table where Orloni's were being pitted against each other in combat until one large Orloni came in and started eating the others, making me and Groot horrified at the sight.

"Yes! Yes! Yahoo! My Orloni has won, as I win at all things! Now, let's put more of this liquid into our bodies." Drax declared holding up a cup of blue liquid.

"That's the first thing you said that wasn't bat crazy!" Rocket exclaimed and downed a cup of the same liquid.

"This is going to be a looooong wait..." I whisper to myself rolling my eyes before leaning against a wall in the corner of the room and started to doze off.

All of a sudden, everyone starts yelling or screaming as Rocket and Drax are facing off against each other and I jump from my position to see what's happening. Drax then tries to punch Rocket, but Groot came to his aid, until he was knocked back by a punch in the jaw. Immediately, I rush over just as Peter and Gamora came in from whatever the heck they were doing outside

"No. Stop it!" Gamora came rushing in and held back Drax with Peter helping her.

"What are you doing?" Peter yells at Drax.

"This vermin speaks of affairs he knows nothing about!" Drax yells back at him.

"That is true!" Rocket declares.

"He has no respect!"

"That is also true!"

"Hold on! Hold on!" Peter tries to stop Rocket from shooting his weapon.

"Keep calling me vermin, tough guy! You just wanna laugh at me like everyone else!" Rocket yells while moving his gun to motion to all the people around us in the bar.

"Rocket, you're drunk. Alright? No one's laughing at you." Peter tries to assure Rocket.

"He thinks I'm some stupid thing! He does! Well, I didn't ask to get made! I didn't ask to be torn apart, and put back together, over and over and turned into some... Some little monster!" Rocket started tearing up towards the end of his rant and I found myself tearing up too since, even though he had already told me the story of how he, too, had bad experiences with laboratories, it clearly hurts him underneath his hard exterior.

"Rocket, no one's calling you a monster."

"He called me 'vermin'! She called me 'rodent'! Let's see if you can laugh after five or six good shots to your frickin' face!" Rocket readies the gun to shoot at Drax before Peter starts to wave his arms in the air in front of him.

"No, no, no, no! Four billion units! Rocket! Come on, man. Hey! Suck it up for one more lousy night and you're rich." Rocket looks to Peter, Drax, and Gamora to everyone in the bar around us and me and Groot as I stand in front of him holding my arms out with my palms facing him with terror clear on my face.

"Fine. But I can't promise, when all this is over I'm not gonna kill every last one of you jerks." Rocket lowers the gun and Peter starts to argue with him.

"See? That's exactly why none of you have any friends! Five seconds after you meet somebody, you're already trying to kill them!"

"We have traveled halfway across the quadrant. And Ronan is no closer to being dead." Drax angrily states and storms out of the bar without another word.

"Drax!" Peter starts to go after him, only to have Gamora stop him on his way out

"Let him go. We don't need him." Gamora tells him and Groot and I go over to Rocket and Groot places a hand on his shoulder as he puts his gun back in the holster.

"I Am Groot?" (Are you alright?)

"Yeah... I guess it just still hurts. Knowing that because of that lab-" I cut Rocket off by saying,

"We've never really fit in with any crowd we've ever been in..." I trailed off when I noticed a girl with high pigtails in a white dress and matching boots with bright pink skin holding her fingertips in each hand appeared in the doorway to the bar and announced,

"Milady Gamora. I'm here to fetch you for my master." She waved her hands as she stepped aside to allow us to walk through.

Why do I have a bad feeling about this? I thought to myself as we started to follow the girl out of the bar.


	9. Creepy Collections

3rd Person POV

"Okay, this isn't creepy at all." Rocket mumbled as he, Groot, JJ, Peter, and Gamora had followed the Collector's representative into a large building that was filled with cages and containment areas, each housing various species of extraterrestrial life.

"This is so creepy..." JJ shuddered at how many cages there were in one building, all with woefully distressed creatures inside.

"We house the galaxy's largest collection of fauna, relics, and species of all manner." Carina told then and, in one cage, a dog wearing a space suit complete with a helmet growled at Rocket and he growled back before JJ nudged the latter to move along.

"I present to you, Taneleer Tivan, The Collector." Carina swept her arms in a dramatic manner to a man with white, frizzy hair, in all black under a furry, white cloak that was draped over his shoulders and wearing multi-layered spectacles.

"Oh, my dear Gamora. How wonderful to meet in the flesh." The Collector took off his spectacles and gave Gamora's hand a kiss.

"Let's bypass the formalities, Tivan. We have what we discussed." Gamora tried to get down to business until he got distracted by Groot and approached him slowly.

"What is that thing there?"

"I am Groot."

"I never thought I'd meet a Groot. Sir... You must allow me to pay you now so that I may own your carcass. At the moment of your death, of course."

"I am Groot."

"Why, so he could turn you into a frickin' chair?" Rocket scoffed and JJ just looked at him in disbelief.

"That's your pet?" The Collector asked Groot as he motioned to Rocket with his head.

"His what?" Rocket growled as he began to pull out his gun.

"Don't, or we might not get paid." JJ tried to quietly warn him, which diverted the Collector's attention away from Rocket to her.

"Ah, one of the last of the Chrysinthean species, a pleasure to make your acquaintance. You are quite the rare specimen yourself." The Collector put a hand out to her, but she stepped away as Rocket was about to pull his gun out, again.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you..." JJ threatened menacingly letting a few sparks crackle above her fists. Tivan just chuckled, amused, before Gamora stepped forward to direct the conversation back on track with,

"Tivan. We have been halfway around the galaxy, retrieving this Orb."

"Very well, then. Let us see what you brought." They looked over at Peter took the Orb out of his bag, only to drop it and pick it back up quickly as JJ silently face-palmed at his idiocy, again.

"Oh, my new friends." The Collector started dramatically as he placed the Orb in a machine that started opening it by twisting it around in different directions, "Before creation itself, there were six singularities. Then the universe exploded into existence, and the remnants of these systems were forged into concentrated ingots. Infinity Stones."

Images of the six stones: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple came floating out around them in holograms, evident when Groot tried to "touch" the Space Stone,

"These stones, it seems, can only be brandished by beings of extraordinary strength. Observe."

Another image of a giant carrying an infinity stone in a staff was seen thudding it to the ground wiping everyone and everything away into purple ashes all across the planet, "These carriers can use the Stone to mow down entire civilizations like wheat in a field."

"There's a little pee coming out of me right now." Peter whispered and everyone looked at him weirdly being paying attention to the next image shown.

"Once, for a moment, a group was able to share the energy amongst themselves, but even they were quickly destroyed by it." Some cloaked beings were seen attempting to share the power of the stone, but, like the planet and its people, they exploded into glowing purple ash. The image ended just as the Orb was completely opened, revealing the purple Power stone and the Collector made dramatic gestures to the stone.

"Beautiful. Beyond compare."

"Blah blah blah... We're all very fascinated. But we'd like to get paid." Rocket growled impatiently and the holograms disappeared from around them.

"How would you like to get paid?"

"What do you think, fancy man? Units!"

"Very well, then." The Collector opened up a drawer full of units when Carina started walking toward the Infinity Stone with a blank look on her face.

"Carina. Stand back." The Collector tried to command her, but she yelled back,

"I will no longer be your slave!"

"No!" Carina tried to grab the Infinity Stone in her hand but purple lights started zipping around, destroying everything they touched and everyone got knocked to the ground by them.

Purple cracks spread up Carina's arm causing her to scream as they began spreading to her whole body. Rocket and JJ were both picked up from the floor by Groot and he ran out of the building with them as Peter and Gamora managed to duck behind a fallen over metal desk, holding each other. Carina screamed one last time before exploding in a mass of purple ash that blew up the whole building and sent a shock wave out to the street as Groot leapt forward with Rocket and JJ in his arms to avoid the shockwave, but not before a flying orb of its energy hit JJ before they landed on the ground with Groot shielding them.

Inside, Peter and Gamora peeked out from the desk as Peter muttered,

"What the ffffff..." Before a light popped out a few sparks, interrupting his statement.

Closing the Orb around the Infinity stone, Gamora grabbed it from its stand and started walking out of the building with Peter behind her.

"How could I think Tivan could contain whatever was within the Orb?" She asked herself out loud halfway to hysterics at that point.

"What do you still have it for?" Rocket pulled his face down in worry.

"What are we gonna do, leave it in there?" Peter retorted back at him.

"I can't believe you had that in your purse!" Rocket yelled pointing at the Orb in Peter's hand.

"It's not a purse, it's a knapsack!"

"We have to bring this to the Nova Corps. There's a chance they can contain it." Gamora tugged on Peter's arm to face him toward her.

"Are you kidding me? We're wanted by the Nova Corps. Just give it to Ronan!" Rocket shot back.

"So he can destroy the galaxy?"

"What are you, some saint all of a sudden? What has the galaxy ever done for you? Why would you wanna save it?"

"Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!"

"Peter, listen to me. We cannot allow the Stone to fall into Ronan's hands. We have to go back to your ship, and deliver it to Nova." Gamora told him desperately.

"Right, right, okay. I think you're right. Or we could give it to somebody who's not going to arrest us, who's really nice for a whole lot of money. I think it's a really good balance between both of your points of view." Peter tried to negotiate, but failed miserably.

"You're despicable. Dishonorable. Faithless!" Gamora shouted right in his face.

"No."

"At last! I shall meet my foe and destroy him." Everyone turned their attention to where Drax was raising his blades into the air as some of Ronan's ships came into Knowhere.

"You called Ronan?" Peter shouted to Drax, but he didn't hear him.

"I Am Groot!" Groot stood up to reveal that JJ hadn't woken up yet and a few purple charges came radiating off of her.

"What?!" Rocket exclaimed before a voice yelled out,

"Quill! Don't you move, boy!" When Peter turned to the direction of the voice, he saw Yondu and some Ravagers with him starting to force their way over to him.


	10. Knowhere Battles

3rd Person POV

"Don't you move! Get out of the way!" Yondu yelled again as he and his Ravager companions started shoving people out of the way to get to Peter.

Meanwhile, Peter, Gamora, and Rocket ran to get away from the Ravagers and Drax was still facing Ronan with his blades in the air.

"Ronan the Accuser!"

"You are the one who transmitted the message?" Ronan asked darkly in disbelief.

"You killed my wife. You killed my daughter!" Drax yelled out in anger as Peter, Gamora, and Rocket made their way over to some mining pods to fly back to the Milano, after pushing out the people who were in them previously. Groot trailed behind carrying JJ in his arms since she still hadn't woken up and purple sparks were coming off of her every few seconds.

"I told you, you can't fit." Rocket told Groot as he was boarding one of the mining pods, "Now, wait here with JJ. I'll be back."

Firing the pods up, Gamora and the others in the pods took off, catching the attention of Gamora's sister, Nebula, and she and a few of Ronan's soldiers prepared to pursue them.

About to take off, Ronan scoffed at Drax and turned to leave with Nebula before Drax yelled out and attempted to strike him with his blades.

"Nebula," Ronan ducked down smoothly to avoid Drax's blow, "Retrieve the Orb." He commanded as he parried another strike and forced Drax down to the ground.

After Nebula's pod took off, Drax tried to strike at Ronan high and low, but every hit was dodged and reflected. He even tried to jump attack him, but it resulted in both of his blades being hit out of his grasp.

At the same time, Rocket and Peter were offering Gamora cover by ramming into the Necrocrafts. Peter managed to gain control of one of the crafts and used it to shoot down several of the other ships that were in pursuit of Gamora.

Back with Drax, he was currently being held in a chokehold by one of Ronan's hands as Drax tried to free himself by punching him in the gut until Ronan had enough and flipped him down to the ground and pinned him there.

"I don't recall killing your family." Ronan released his hold on Drax's neck, allowing him to gasp for air before continuing, "I doubt I'll remember killing you, either."

With the pod crew, Gamora was being forced against a wall of Knowhere and resorted to flying outside in the vacuum of space to shake Nebula and the soldiers, but had her pod blown apart by Nebula after trying to reason with her.

At the same time, Drax had been taken out by Ronan as he threw him in a vat of yellow spinal fluid to drown. As Ronan watched the air bubbles cease to rise to the surface of the yellow liquid, he felt something hit his back, but barely flinched.

Turning around, JJ was there, Groot having left her behind to help others get away from the chaos, holding a rock in her hand as she weakly clutched her side with a purple glowing in her hand.

"I don't have time for this, insolent child." Ronan flipped his hammer in his hand before smacking it into JJ's side after she tried to tackle him. The hit made her fly into the side of a building and fall limply to the ground, still struggling to push herself up as Ronan walked back to his ship.

After taking the Orb, Nebula and her fleet retreated back to the Dark Aster before Peter got taken in by the Ravagers trying to save Gamora's life, against Rocket's advice.

Meanwhile, Groot had fished Drax out from the vat and stabbed an area above his collarbone to force the liquid out of his body, allowing him to breathe again while JJ weakly jump-started his heart with an electric shock.

"Blasted idiot. They're all idiots! Quill just got himself captured." Rocket told himself before telling the others as he climbed out of the miner pod before yelling to Drax. "None of this ever would have happened if you didn't try to single-handedly take on a frickin' army!"

"You're right... I was a fool. All the anger... all the rage... was just to cover my loss." Drax admitted as he looked to the ground in shame right before Rocket told him,

"Oh boo hoo my wife and child are dead."

Groot gasped at Rocket's insensitivity while JJ just glared and shook her head in disappointment.

"I don't care if it's mean! Everybody's got dead people. It's no excuse to get everybody else dead along the way!" Groot's glare deepened at Rocket's outburst and he looked guilty for a split-second before shaking it off and saying,

"Come on, Groot, JJ. Ronan has the Stone. The only chance we got is to get to the other side of the universe as fast as we can and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live full lives before that whack-job ever gets there." Rocket turned to leave with JJ following him looking mournful until Groot stood up from where he was crouching over Drax.

"I am Groot."

"Save them?" Rocket started.

"How?" JJ asked with a mix of hope and doubt.

"I am Groot."

"He's got a point there Rocket." JJ directed to him.

"I know they're the only friends that we've ever had, but there's an army of Ravagers around them. And there's only three of us!"

"Four." Drax stood up and placed a hand on Groot's shoulder and JJ's head as they smiled at Rocket before he started to growl and grip his fur in fists as he looked to hit something. He started kicking a tuft of grass behind him saying each word as he kicked it,

"You're making me beat. up. grass!"

"Come on Rocket, we got new friends to save." JJ ran off in the direction of the Milano with Drax, Groot, and Rocket, grudgingly, following her.

Time Skip

"Alright kid, finish wiring this circuit board and then hand it to Drax." Rocket handed JJ a half-finished weapon as he made his way to the cockpit, who accepted it with a confused, and slightly worried look on her face.

She did what she was told, charging the weapon with some of the purple, excess energy she still had from being hit with one of the Infinity Stone's power before putting the hatch back over the circuits and handing it to Drax, who went down to the airlock ejection, grinning like a madman.

"Uh... what are you planning?"

"Just a little friendly persuasion." Rocket replied as he sat in the front seat of the Milano as the Ravager ship came into view and Rocket aimed the Milano's blasters at it.

"Wait, no!" Her warning came too late as the blasts landed hits on the ship and Rocket proceeded to announce on the ship's outer intercoms,

"Attention, idiots. The lunatic on top of this craft is holding a Hadron Enforcer. A weapon of my own design. If you don't hand over our companions now, he's gonna tear your ship a new one. A very big new one! I'm giving you to the count of five."

"Rocket seriously you can't-" JJ didn't get to finish her sentence before Rocket started counting down,

"5, 4, 3..."

"No! Wait, hold on! Rocket, it's me! We figured it out! We're fine!" We heard Peter's voice come from the Ravager ship just as Drax was about to fire the Hadron Enforcer.

"Oh hey, Quill. What's going on?" Rocket spoke back and JJ gave him the patented squinted 'what?' look.


	11. New Plan

JJ's POV

"You call that 'figured it out'? We're gonna rob the guys who just beat us senseless." Rocket yelled at Peter as we all sat in a circle on board the Ravager ship.

"You want to talk about senseless? How about trying to save us by blowing us up?" Peter yelled back at Rocket.

"We were only gonna blow you up if they didn't turn you over!"

"And how on earth were they gonna turn us over when you only gave them a count of five?"

"Hey, don't look at me, I tried to stop this idiot before he 'blasted you all a big one'." I broke into their argument to tell Peter before Rocket butted in,

"We didn't have time to work out the minutiae of the plan. This is what we get for acting altruistically."

"I am Groot."

"They are ungrateful."

"What's important now is that we get the Ravagers' army to help us save Xandar." Gamora interjected before Rocket argued,

"So we can give the Stone to Yondu who's just gonna sell to somebody even worse?"

"We'll figure that part out later." Peter assured him,

"We have to stop Ronan."

"How?

"I have a plan." Peter announced determinedly.

"You've got a plan?" Rocket asked with doubt clear in his voice.

"Yes."

"I'm shocked." I exaggerated sarcastically, making everyone look at me with half-lidded gazes.

"First of all, you're copying me from when I said I had a plan."

"No, I'm not. People say that all the time. It's not that unique of a thing to say."

"Secondly, I don't even believe you have a plan."

"I have part of a plan!"

"What percentage of a plan do you have?"

"You don't get to ask questions after the nonsense you pulled on Knowhere."

"I just saved Quill."

"We've already established that you destroying the ship that I'm on is not saving me."

"When did we establish it?"

"Like three seconds ago!"

"I wasn't listening. I was thinking of something else."

"Nope, she's right. You don't get an opinion."

"What percentage?"

"I don't know. Twelve percent."

"Twelve percent HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" Rocket started to "laugh" hysterically, but even I could tell it was fake.

"That's a fake laugh." Quill told him unamused.

"It's real!"

"Totally fake."

"That is the most real, authentic, hysterical laugh of my entire life - because that is not a plan."

"It's barely a concept."

"You're taking their side?"

"I am Groot."

"So what, it's better than 11%? What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Thank you, Groot. Thank you. See? Groot's the only one of you who has a clue." Peter's words were cut off as we all watched Groot chew off a leaf that was growing on his shoulder and Rocket and I sighed and put a hand to my forehead in exasperation.

"Guys. Come on. Yondu is gonna be here in two seconds. He expects to hear this big plan of ours. I need your help." Quill paused before starting solemnly, "Look around at us. You know what I see? Losers…" We all looked at Quill, slightly insulted before he quickly added, "I mean, like, folks who have lost stuff. And we have. Man, we have. All of us. Our homes, our families, normal lives. And, usually, life takes more than it gives. But not today. Today, it's given us something. It has given us a chance."

"To do what?" Drax questioned depressed.

"To give a krutack. For once. Not run away. I, for one, am not gonna stand by and watch as Ronan wipes out billions of innocent lives."

"But, Quill, stopping Ronan, it's impossible. You're asking us to die."

"Yeah, I guess I am."

"Quill. I have lived most my life surrounded by my enemies. I will be grateful to die among my friends." Gamora stood up and announced valiantly.

"You are an honorable man, Quill. I will fight beside you. And in the end, I will see my wife and daughter again."

"For as long as I can remember, I've been running and hiding, but no more, I'm with you Quill, you just better hope we pull this off." I stood up and punched my fists together for emphasis, making a bright pop of light come out for a split second before it vanished.

"I am Groot." Groot stood up and we both looked over to Rocket who sighed out loud before looking wistful and saying,

"What the hell. I don't got that long a lifespan, anyway." He stood up on the box he was sitting on, put his arms out to gesture to all of us, now standing in a circle, and announcing, "Now I'm standing. Y'all happy? We're all standing up now. Bunch of jackasses, standing in a circle."

Everyone left to prepare for the battle by putting on some red Ravager uniforms and to check to make sure their weapons were ready. I was pulling on a jacket with the Ravager symbol on it over my regular outfit when I heard a knock on the door frame and I turned around to see Rocket and Groot at the doorway.

"Ya ready kid?" I nodded in response and touched my hand to a lamp that was in the room and siphoned some of its energy to use, making some sparks go off in my hands to show that I was ready for battle.

"Alright then, let's go. You're going with Groot." They started to leave the room when I asked,

"Rocket?"

"Yeah?" He turned back to me and Groot stayed just outside of the doorway looking back at me. I hesitated a bit before asking,

"What's gonna happen if we fail?"

"I don't know kid, but we gotta give it all we got."

There was a pause before Rocket climbed up onto Groot's shoulder and reached down to ruffle my hair to fall into my face before he chuckled,

"Alright alright enough with the sentimental crap, come on, we got a power maniac to depower."

Time Skip to flying into the Dark Aster with Gamora, Peter, Drax, Groot, and JJ

We managed to crash our ship into the Dark Aster as planned and were getting off into the dark place when Gamora told us out of the blue,

"This is a terrible plan."

"Hey, you're the one who said you wanted to die among friends." Quill made his point and I looked over to her, trying to give her a knowing side nod when I noticed that the dark was too dark to see much of anything.

"I can barely see." I heard Drax say and I was about to light up my hands, but Groot gently placed a hand on my shoulder to stop me before he held out his other hand and released glowing seeds that rose to the air and lit up the area.

"When did you learn to do that?"

"Pretty sure the answer is 'I am Groot.'" Peter answered for me seeing as I was about to translate for him.

"The flight deck is 300 meters this way." Gamora led the way and we all had our guards up as we continued to walk through the lightly lit up hall.

"I want you all to know that I am grateful for your acceptance after my blunders. It is pleasing to once again have friends. You, Quill, are my friend."

"Thanks."

"This dumb tree, he is my friend."

"The innocent child who commands lightning, she is my friend as well."

"Thanks…?"

"And this green whore, she, too…"

"You must stop!" Gamora yelled out and suddenly a blue cyborg lady dropped down in front of us.

"Gamora, look at what you have done. You have always been weak. You stupid, traitorous-" The blue lady stated to insult Gamora before she was shot away from us and we looked to see that Drax was responsible for the blast,

"Nobody talks to my friends like that." Drax announced fiercely.

"Head to the flight deck. I'll shut down the power to the security doors."

"I'm going with you." I announced powering up my gloves and Gamora nodded as we ran to the security room.

When we got there, we could see that the blue lady was snapping all her disfigured limbs back into place with metallic clicks before glaring at us with her piercing black eyes.

"Nebula… Please…" Gamora pleaded with her as I kept behind her with my hands ready for a jolt thinking,

So that's her name, man I was getting so lost on who she was…

Nebula struck first, swinging her rod down on Gamora, who swiftly avoided it and elbowed her in the back, stunning her long enough to start to make a run for the power source.

Just as she was about to reach it, Nebula pulled out and extended both her rods and I tried to stall her by sending a jolt through my hands to her arm, but she grabbed my wrists and twisted them behind my back with a sickening *crack* before shoving me to the side.

Well, this is gonna be harder than I thought… I thought to myself as I shoved my wrist back into place.


	12. Battle Cries and Groot Goodbyes

JJ's POV

"Alright, no more playing nice..." I growled before I flipped onto my feet and activated the magnetic function of my gloves. Grabbing Nebula's metal arm, I wrenched her off of Gamora as she was tasing her with her staff.

"The whole electric thing is my deal." I gritted my teeth as I used both my hands and planted my feet with my boots sticking to the surface of the floor to toss Nebula toward the hole that was blasted into the side of the Dark Aster from the Ravagers just as Gamora pulled out the cords for the security door's power.

"No!" Gamora yelled as she ran over to where Nebula was dangling from the side of the ship.

"What're you doin'?!" I shouted to her as she leaned over to reach her hand out to Nebula, who turned out to be hanging on by her wrist being caught between two metal frame wires.

"Sister, help us fight Ronin. You know he's crazy." She pleaded before Nebula looked at us with her dark eyes and responded with,

"I know you're both crazy." Before cutting off her own hand to release her to the air below.

"No!" Gamora screamed before I stopped her from jumping after her shouting,

"What're you insane?! We have to go catch up with the others!" I let go of her before using my powers to blast a hole right above us, clearing the way for Gamora to jump up while I used my boots to magnetically repel myself upwards.

Drax had finished bashing a few guards in when Quill prepared the Hadron Enforcer to fire at Ronin, who was standing right in front of us with his freaky purple glowing hammer and eyes before the whole room was blasted with a bright white light, making us all turn to shield our eyes.

When the light went down, the dust was starting to kick up when Drax cheered,

"You did it!"

"Nice shootin'!" I hit Quill's arm lightly until I saw his smile fade and we all turned to see that Ronin was still in one piece.

"Aw crap…" I muttered to myself before he brought his hammer up and used it to send a shockwave of energy that forced us back. Gasping, I looked to see that a light was shining from below my neck and it felt like a hot knife was being driven into my chest as ice was being forced in.

Grabbing at the light, my vision began to dim as I felt myself being lifted up by course arms right before being knocked down as something crashed into the room. When my eyes focused again, I saw that Quill was on top of Groot as he was shielding us from the ship that Rocket crashed into Ronin.

"Rocket!" I bolted up to yank at the straps holding him in place in the seat before Quill placed a hand on my arm and helped me to gently pull him out of the wreckage. Gamora was dragging Drax over to where we were gathering around Groot as we realized that the ship was destabilizing and we would be crashing to Xandar's surface soon, an impact even I wouldn't be able to survive.

I closed my eyes to avoid looking at everyone's devastated faces when I heard some snapping noises coming from behind me and looked to see that Groot was growing out his branches to surrounded us in a leafy cocoon. From the outside, we could feel the explosions and shaking from the ship, but inside everyone was secured in place with Groot's vines being lit up with the glow seeds.

"Groot, we can find another way without you dyin'!" I pleaded with tears gathering in my eyes from what I realized Groot was trying to do for us.

"Why are you doing this? Why?" Rocket questioned as Groot extended out a vine to pat the side of Rocket's face and to brush a stray strand of hair out of my face before he spoke,

"We are Groot." His big brown eyes were the last thing I saw before everything went white from impact.

Groaning in pain from the crash, I found myself surrounded by rubble from the ship as a faint song was being played through the air. Forcing myself to my scrapped hands, I looked around to see Rocket clutching one of Groot's stick remains while whispering,

"I called him an idiot..."

I was pushing myself to my feet when I saw a purple glow coming from the remains of the Dark Aster and Ronin was the source.

"You killed Groot!" Rocket yelled before trying to charge at Ronin and being thrown back with a flick of his hammer.

"No!" I limped over to Rocket where I found him furiously working on the remains of the Hadron Enforcer as Ronin began his monologue,

"Behold! Your guardians of the galaxy. What fruit have they wrought?"

I stopped paying attention as I helped Rocket to fix what was left of the weapon before Quill started distracting him with some weird Earth dance before handing the weapon to Drax to prepare to fire it.

"It's gonna need a charge before I hotwire it so be ready." Rocket whispered to me and I prepared my gloves as Ronin demanded,

"What are you doing?"

"I'm distracting you, you big turd blossom." Quill grinned as Ronin turned to see Drax with the weapon, me with a crackling hand on it, and Rocket hotwire it, firing one last projectile to his hammer, releasing the Power Stone from inside. Just before Ronin could get his hands on it, Quill jumped forward to grab the stone with his bare hand, creating a swirling vortex of dirt and purple lights, like from Carina's encounter with the Stone.

"No!" Gamora yelled before she forced her way through the swirling power vortex to get to Quill, as his body started to crumble apart with purple cracks.

Gamora held out her hand to Quill and he grabbed it just before the power started to go through Gamora too and Drax when he placed a hand on Quill's shoulder and through Rocket and me when Rocket grabbed a hold of Drax's finger and I held onto Rocket's hand. The light from before shone again from my chest as the light shining from the five of us dimmed and the winds from the vortex became calmer as the power from the stone became more focused.

"You're mortal! How?" Ronin demanded as Quill told him,

"You said it yourself, b**ch. We're the Guardians of the Galaxy."

Just as Ronin was about to swing his hammer to hit us, Quill opened up his hand and light beamed out from me to hit Ronin with enough power to disintegrate him into purple ashes. Just as the stone was intaking more energy, Gamora slammed a containment orb over it, making the vortex die down before I passed out from the energy drain.

3rd Person POV

After Peter swiped the real Power Stone from Yondu, Rocket sat down next to where JJ's body lay on the ground clutching one of Groot's branches. Drax went over, grimacing as he held his side in pain from sitting down as he saw that Rocket was holding in his sobs with a concerned look for JJ.

"I-I can't lose her too…" Rocket's cries started again as he held the branch even closer to his heart with one hand before laying the other on JJ's cheek before Drax cautiously held out a hand to gently stroke the top of Rocket's head. He stopped crying abruptly before accepting the feeling of comfort from the motions before Drax murmured,

"She will be fine, they both will be..."


	13. New Beginnings

JJ's POV

_Darkness… Then lights… Four colorful lights, Red, Blue, Purple, and Yellow, were swimming around in my line of sight until they all converged to form a single sphere floating around in a sea of tiny white lights._

I woke up with a small groan of pain as I slowly lifted myself off the bed I was laying down on in what looked like an infirmary. Instead of my regular outfit in its normal colors, my shirt and skirt had been changed to a dark blue while my boots were black and my goggles had been upgraded and left on the table next to the bed.

"Hey Spark Plug," I turned my head to the source of the voice to see Rocket in a blue jumpsuit sitting on a chair with a pot that had the Groot branch he had been clutching before I passed out.

"Hey Furball, what happened?" I joked before asking him, looking around.

"You took in a lot of crazy powerful energy from the stone and I think you were overloaded, 'til you managed to let some of it out by frying half their equipment here." Rocket used his thumb to point to a blackened monitor as well as scorch marks on the wall next to it.

"Oops?" I awkwardly smiled before lifting my hands up in a questioning position, making Rocket laugh softly. I noticed some purple sparks come off of my hands before I looked over to the expression Rocket was making as he looked down at the pot in his hold.

"Is he gonna be OK?"

"I don't know, kid, I hope so…" Rocket trailed off before he sighed and told me, "I coulda lost you too, you know that right?"

"Yeah… I know…, but I'm still here aren't I?"

"Yay for me…" Rocket replied with a hint of sarcasm that JJ caught and paid him back by sending a small static shock to him, making his fur puff up. JJ was holding back her laughs until Rocket shook off the static and told her,

"Alright alright, c'mon they want us out there, 'parently they found somethin' off about Quill."

"Other than the fact that he's Terran?" I scoffed jokingly as we walked out of the infirmary and met up with Gamora, Quill, and Drax as Quill was asking,

"I'm not Terran?"

"Well, there goes my burn…" I commented out loud making everyone smile at me before turning back to the matter at hand,

"You are half Terran. Your mother was of Earth. Your father, well, he's something very ancient we've never seen here before." Nova Prime explained before Gamora theorized,

"That could be why you were able to hold the Stone for as long as you did." Nova Prime turned to me and told me,

"And as for you, Joules, we discovered that the power signature you emit as a Chrysinthean matches several signatures that we have detected around the galaxy, so you may not be the last of your species after all."

"So I might actually have a shot at finding my sister?" I asked a bit hopefully letting my careless attitude drop for a split second.

"It will be difficult, after all, they're known for hiding in plain sight in order to observe and not be known." I took in what she said before turning to Rocket and the others before responding,

"In the meantime, I'll stick with this family." I smiled to the others before it was announced that the rest of our friends were here and Nova Prime declared to the rest of us,

"On behalf of the Nova Corps, we'd like to express our profound gratitude for your help in saving Xandar. If you will follow _Denarian _Dey, he has something to show you." Dey was motioned to as he wore his new uniform and gave us a small wave at his new title,

"Thank you, Nova Prime." Quill thanked her as we were all led outside, I caught on a piece of the conversation between Gamora and Drax about Thanos and stiffened when the name was mentioned before shaking it off.

"We tried to keep it as close to the original as possible. We salvaged as much as we could." Dey showed us outside that an exact replica of the Milano was waiting in the launch area, leaving Quill speechless as he stuttered,

"I... Thank you."

"I have a family. They're alive because of you. Your criminal records have also been expunged. However, I have to warn you against breaking any laws in the future." Dey directed to Quill first before referring to the rest of us.

"Question. What if I see something that I want to take, and it belongs to someone else?" Rocket asked making me choke a laugh into my hand.

"You will be arrested."

"But what if I want it more than the person who has it?"

"It's still illegal."

"That doesn't follow. No, I want it more, sir. Do you understand? What are you laughing at? Why? I can't have a discussion with this gentleman?" Rocket was led away by Quill as Drax asked Dey,

"What if someone does something irksome and I decide to remove his spine?"

"That's... That's actually murder. It's one of the worst crimes of all. So... also illegal." Drax nods before I go up and ask,

"What if someone insults us and I decide to zap their lights out?"

"Unless it's in physical self-defense with the perpetrator still alive, you would still be arrested."

"Hm?" I side shrugged before getting onto the new Milano and admiring how much to the original it looked like, and how clean it was.

"Least we won't be dealing with any Pollock painting replicas." I thought out loud until Quill cut in with,

"Oh just give it a week." Before some music began to play over the intercoms and we all met up in the bridge. Gamora and Drax seemed to be on better terms, Rocket and I smiled down at the tiny Groot that was stretching in his pot, and Quill asking us,

"So, what should we do next? Something good? Something bad? A bit of both?" We all looked at each other in question before Gamora answered,

"We'll follow your lead, Star-Lord."

"Bit of both." He decided as the music continued to play while the Milano rose into the air and took off into space as the newly titled 'Guardians of the Galaxy'.

AN- Happy New Year's Eve Everyone! Here's the last part of the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, I should be posting the in-between movies short story where JJ faces off against an old foe soon. Until next decade, See Ya!


	14. (Almost) Taken Back

AN- This 2-part short story happens after the first movie, but before the second.

3rd Person POV

The new Guardians of the Galaxy had just finished saving the galaxy from Ronan the Accuser and turned the Infinity Stone in to Nova Prime, who had put it in a high-security vault in Nova Corp. They then settled on doing 'a bit of both' by going to a bar on Knowhere.

When they arrived, Peter, Rocket, and Drax automatically ordered several rounds of alcoholic beverages, laughing about the countless times they thought they were going to die and tried to give the growing Baby Groot a drink, but were stopped each time they tried.

Meanwhile, Gamora drained down a drink before she stopped and noticed that JJ was standing off to the side blankly staring off with a concerned look on her face.

"You alright?" Gamora asked as she walked up to her with a drink in hand and offered it to her, but she shook her head.

"Keeping my senses sharp in case someone tries to start somethin'." JJ replied.

"Then why do you look so lost?" JJ hesitated before answering,

"I'm just thinking about how it was before Rocket, Groot, and I met you guys." She replied nodding her head over to the guys.

"And?"

"When it was just the three of us, they always hid me or covered for me every time I would go and help them since the Oajins have been trying to track me down for a couple of years now."

"Oajins?"

"The beings who had trained and experimented on me in the lab and who's leader, Kryjer, still wants to use me as a weapon against his enemies." JJ responded before continuing,

"Now that it's been announced that we're the 'Guardians of the Galaxy', they will have no trouble in finding me and..." She trailed off thinking about what would happen if she were turned into an actual weapon.

"I thought you weren't afraid of anything?" Gamora asked with a slight smirk.

"Well, now my only fear is losing my new family... like my old one." JJ admitted with such ease, that it surprised Gamora, even with the whispered last part.

"Being a part of this team may make it easier to find you, but it also makes it harder to get to you since you have all of us here to have your back, so you shouldn't worry too much about it." Gamora told JJ before she went back over to the guys to refill her drink as JJ considered her words.

_I guess there is some truth to that I'm harder to get to, but I don't want them to be in danger because of me..._ She thought to herself just as three thugs came into the bar and started shoving people around and breaking things. JJ looked over to her team and saw that Gamora was busy trying to keep Quill, Drax, and Rocket from fighting each other and others, so she figured it was up to her.

"Hey!" She yelled at them and when they turned their attention to her as she threatened, "You better take your issues elsewhere cause no one here wants any trouble." Making the thugs roar with laughter.

"The little girl from the 'A-holes of the Galaxy' thinks she can be a hero!" The biggest guy walked up to JJ, roughly grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, and held her up at arm's length as she tried to fight back.

JJ grasped the arm that was holding her up and tried to send a shock through it, but it failed and she continued to struggle in his hold.

"_Put. Her. Down._ and _Get Out_!" The thug turned around to see the other guardians behind him and Rocket was the one who spoke while holding a large gun, aiming it at the guy holding JJ.

"Fine." The thug holding her said grudgingly and she was dropped onto the floor as they left, mumbling insults under their breath as they went.

"Are you hurt?" Gamora asked as she propped up Peter on her right side.

"What were those Orloni's doin'?" Peter asked slightly slurring.

"Yeah, let's just go." JJ said as she dusted herself off as she and the Guardians walked out. They were heading back to the Milano, with Gamora and Drax propping up a hangover Peter and Rocket carrying Baby Groot's pot when JJ felt a sharp pain in her stomach.

In her mind's eye, she saw the same images from after her encounter with the Power stone; four colored, glowing shards coming off the Infinity Stones, converging until a planet was formed and humanoid figures were seen on the surface. However, something new was seen in this dream, a wave of energy from an unknown source was seen sweeping over the planet, vaporizing all the people into dust.

_JJ?_

_Kid!_

_Yo sparkyyyy!_

JJ gasped in a breath of air as she realized she wasn't breathing the whole time her vision blacked out from the dream.

"Hey hey hey hey are you A-OK?" Peter roughly thumped a hand on JJ's shoulder as she calmed down by taking deep breaths.

"What happened?" Gamora came into JJ' view.

"We thought the electric child had died due to her lack of breathing for two minutes." Drax stated plainly as he harshly patted JJ on her back.

"What's wrong kid?" Rocket asked as Baby Groot made little noises of concern.

"The dream from before… I saw more this time..." She breathed as her eyes were wide open and not blinking.

"What?" Rocket asked.

"There they are!" They heard a voice yell from close by. When they turned toward the voice, they saw it was the thugs who tried to make trouble earlier and one horribly familiar face.

_Kryjer..._ JJ thought in horror.

"Come on, we gotta get out of here now!" JJ tugged on Rocket's paw as Gamora hurriedly pulled Peter along with Drax's help to get back to the Milano as fast as they could.

"Hey, you didn't pay for your drinks!" They heard the bar owner yell from the doorway.

"We just saved the galaxy dude!" Peter yelled back still slurring his speech before Gamora shoved him on board and into a seat in the cockpit of the Milano and they began to take off.

"They are still following us." Drax pointed to the Oajin ship that was beginning to pull up next to them.

"Try to shake'em while I activate the weapons system." Rocket started typing in commands into the ship's system to start shooting at the ship next to them.

"It is not working." Drax gestured to the shots bouncing off the ship's exterior like nothing as the ship pulled up right next to them.

"I can see that!"

"Surrender Subject J75-4, or we will shoot your ship down and take the subject back by force." Kryjer demanded as he glared at the Guardians through the front of the Milano.

"What are we supposed to do? There aren't any jump points nearby." Gamora asked as she used the navigation system to try to find an escape route.

"Leave this to me..." JJ made her way to the engine and rubbed her gloved hands preparing a charge.

"Woah, kid, you couldn't make a spark back in the bar what makes you think you can do it now?" Rocket yelled back to her.

"Because I'm trying to protect you all..." JJ closed her eyes and brought up a spark of energy that she magnified to large proportions and directed it to the ship's engine. Rocket saw what she was doing so he threw the lever to increase the speed of the ship to where they basically hyper jumped away from Knowhere to another star system, leaving a furious Kryjer.

3rd Person POV with the Guardians

When the jump finished, everyone fell from their seats feeling lightheaded, while JJ fell to the ground unconscious. Gamora went to set her down on the bench while Rocket tried to figure out where they were.

"We just jumped 20 points in 10 seconds." He announced while looking at the screens, before they went completely dark, "And now half the ship's systems are completely fried."

"At least we're still alive." Gamora stated after she had slapped Peter awake and back to his senses as he rubbed his sore cheek in annoyance.

"Yeah, and now we don't even know where the krutack we are." Rocket pointed out as they all saw that they were on a desolate planet.

"We must find out where we are before this crier does." Drax announced while punching a fist to his hand.

"Kryjer." Rocket corrected him.

"Unless JJ wakes up, and that seems highly unlikely at the moment, she won't be able to tell us how to heal her." Gamora pointed out and they turned their attention to where she had set JJ down on the bench in the cockpit right next to Baby Groot in his pot, who was gently patting JJ's cheek with a worried look.

"Maybe you could just slap her awake like you did to me!" Peter yelled the last part to Gamora, but shut his mouth when he saw her preparing another blow.

"The idiot might actually have an idea." Rocket admitted as he went over to JJ and gave her a hard slap on the forehead, but she didn't even twitch in response.

"I don't think that will work." Gamora told Rocket as he prepared another slap.

"And why not? It worked on Quill and he's even more stubborn than she is."

"She's exhausted herself too much she needs some time to rest and recharge." Gamora responded while crossing her arms in thought.

"This is new how?" Rocket asked with a hint of sarcasm.

"She's healing from pushing her usual limits especially after our encounter with the Power Stone, she needs to lay off using her powers for a while." Rocket looked down at JJ as Baby Groot extended his arms out to her to give her head a hug.

"Don't worry, we'll figure out where we are, how to stop Kryjer, and she'll heal up and be back to normal in no time. Well, normal for her always." Peter, more or less, got over his hangover and gave Rocket a pat on the back, retracting his hand quickly before he could bite it.

"What do we do in the meantime about that?" Drax questioned while pointing to one of the Milano's jets that sputtered out while the other started to weaken.

"I'll go and make repairs to the engines, you idiots just don't turn them on while I'm out there. Oh and get the kid some energy or else the poison will be makin' its way through her real soon" Rocket went down to the hangar to get to work on the engines leaving Gamora to the task.

Gamora sat down next to JJ as Groot continued to look at her worriedly, only intensifying after JJ's face scrunched up in an expression of pain as some dark purple made their way through her veins up to her face.

"Don't worry, we'll figure out a way out of here." Gamora assured Groot as she quickly plugged a cord into the power panel and used JJ's limp hands to grip the cord, leaving it in her hold on a low setting for recharging as the purple receded and JJ settled down into a more peaceful state, allowing Gamora to get up and leave.

As she did, a dim light glowed on her chest, making a few wisps of light rise up and make their way over to the window to point to something in the distance. Groot noticed this and tried to wave to Gamora but to no avail and bent over JJ with a hopeful look on his little face.

_Meanwhile with Kryjer_

"Has the Subject been located?"

"We believe we've located a potential match on a planet in Sector R-85." A soldier reported to Kryjer.

"Send every ship we have to that Sector and tell them to retrieve the Subject with the intent to kill anyone who tries to stop them."

"Yes Sir." The soldier used his right hand to punch the top of his left shoulder with a head bow before leaving.

Kryjer sat down at his desk, looking over the files that showed JJ during her lab training days with various charts and reports on her powers along with the blueprints of a planet with several notes in red ink on how to infiltrate and destroy the planet from the inside with small lightning bolts drawn next to them.

_Soon we will have our weapon of mass destruction and we can take back what is ours, you cannot run forever, J75-4..._


	15. Back to her Roots

3rd Person POV

"Alright, we should be good to go!" Rocket yelled up to Peter from the hatch that led down to the main engine, "Fire it up!"

"On it." Peter tapped a few commands on the adjustable tablet screen before pushing the lever forward to fire up the engines, only for a loud *boom* to be heard from down below followed by an irritated yell and kick to metal,

"Stupid piece of- *clink*!"

"What's going on now?" Gamora questioned as she entered the bridge.

"What's goin' on is we're not flarggin' goin' anywhere until the kid wakes up to give the ship a jumpstart!" Rocket announced as he entered the bridge with his fur covered in soot and smoke rising from a small fire on his tail.

"Uh Rocket?" Peter motioned to the growing fire behind him making Rocket look behind him and yell before he patted the fire down himself.

"Where's Drax?" Peter asked as he barely noticed he was missing.

"Oh big guy went to explore the place, was convinced he heard something outside." Rocket responded like it was meant to be obvious.

"And you didn't think to tell us why?!" Peter exclaimed before Rocket waved him off with,

"Re-_lax_ would ya, I put a tracer on him before he left." Rocket used his wrist device to project an image of a red dot among the gray of their surroundings.

"Ok Einstein, then uh tell me, what're those four heat signatures _behind_ him?" Peter pointed to said dots behind the main red one.

"Whatever's still alive on this planet." Rocket grabbed one of his many large guns and went out of the ship as Drax's dot was edging closer to the ship, so whatever was behind him was getting closer too.

"Get ready." Gamora unsheathed her blade, pointing it ahead to the forest of burned tree trunks.

"For what exactly?" Peter questioned as he got his blasters out as well.

"Just shut it and get ready to shoot" Rocket readied the gun as it powered up.

Out from the charred brush, Drax emerged, covered in what looked like green mud, but otherwise unharmed.

"Oh my-!" Rocket pinched his nose while gagging at the smell of the gunk that was covering Drax, even though he was still several feet from him.

"Ugh! What is that stuff?" Peter covered his face with his sleeve as well while Gamora just turned her face the other way and made silent coughing noises.

"I landed in the midst of a disgusting marshland, there is nothing on this planet left alive." Drax explained simply as if the smell wasn't bothering him.

Right after he said that, three creatures burst through the dead forest; they looked like larger, scarier Orloni's with long talons on their front legs and their backsides converged into a single snake-like tail with razor spikes on the spine and their colors were muted grays and browns to blend into their lifeless environment.

"Oh yeah what about _them_?!" Rocket prepared to shoot them when another, smaller version of the creatures with brighter colors, a bushy tail, feathery antennae, and oddly shaped ears rushed out from behind the first three to stop them from coming any closer to the four Guardians.

"Uhhhh what's happening?" Peter lowered his weapons in confusion.

A shrill cross between a cat's meow and a dog's bark emanated from the smaller being and the larger beings responded with gruffer growls before they backed off and retreated back into the forest.

"Did that small thing just tell them to back off?"

"Clearly that is what happened." Drax stated matter of factly.

"Stop asking obvious questions." Gamora criticized as she sheathed her blade and the small being walked up to them.

The small creature sat right in front of the four of them and held up one of its tiny paws toward them.

"What's it doin'?" Rocket fully powered down his weapon.

"I think it wants you to shake. You know hands er paws." Peter suggested and Rocket grumbled before taking the creature's paw and its antennae lit up with a light blue glow.

_I sense one of the planet guardians with you…_ The being telepathically spoke with Rocket in a feminine voice as he was trying his best to not freak out.

"Don't know what you're talkin' abo-"

_Do not attempt to deceive me, I sense she is on your spaceship in a power overload stasis, if you do not bring me to her, she will die._ The creature ripped her paw from Rocket's, one of her spines stretched out to attach itself to Rocket's wrist, and her cat-like eyes narrowed into slits at the last part of the mental conversation.

"Alright, the… freaky feline's comin' aboard." Rocket began to lead the alien to the ship as the others looked on in confusion.

"Uh ok then?" Peter accepted that and followed them inside before grimacing at Drax's odor.

"Seriously go clean that stuff off, we just got a brand new ship, let's not ruin'er after only a day."

A few minutes later, the feline was led into the bridge where JJ was still resting with the power cord fallen out of her grasp and baby Groot still watching over her.

"Alright here she is, now get your... spine cuff off me."

_Very well… but how will I communicate with you and your team?_

"Well I ain't no translator so figure it out." Rocket groaned as he crossed his arms before the extended spine detached from his wrist and the creature made her way up the bench to sit next to JJ as Peter and Gamora came in.

"What are you exactly?" Gamora questioned and the spine once again extended out, this time waiting for Gamora to take it. She grasped it and it fully attached itself around her wrist before mentally speaking,

You may call me Gora, I am known as a Granaphora, a highly intuitive being of this former peaceful planet, Chrysinthea…

"Chrysinthea?"

"What'd you say?" Rocket asked urgently, recognition clear in his voice.

"You've heard of it?" Peter asked.

"This is JJ's home planet. She said it had been completely destroyed."

_That is only half correct, the planet itself is dead, but there are few non-Chrysinthean survivors that live outside of this desolate place._

"We keep hearing about there being other Chrysintheans still being alive but no one's ever actually seen one in person." Peter pointed out, referring back to when Nove Prime had told them of alleged encounters with some of the elusive people.

_Naturally, the people of this planet were known to hide in plain sight because they feared how they would be reacted to after so much hatred from other 'purist' beings who saw their people as nothing more than a plague._

"Thanos once mentioned a race of beings who could harness incredible powers but would use that power to infest the galaxies wherever they would go, I didn't think he meant this place."

_You should have seen it when it was still alive..._ Gora's antennae glowed a light yellow and, in her mind's eye she saw forests reaching up to the multi-colored sky, people going about their day happily chatting with others, children playing with technologies that seemed both futuristic and natural.

_All the people of this planet wanted was peace, yet the Mad Titan had to take it all away… Gora's mental voice cracked at the last part as if she wanted to cry but was unable to._

"Alright alright enough of the sappy talk, you said JJ was gonna die if we didn't let you in, now fix her." Rocket interrupted the moment with half impatient half annoyed tone as he pointed back to JJ.

_You do not have to be so impolite about it._ Gora rolled her eyes and drew her spine back from Gamora before plunging the tip into the spot on JJ's chest where the lights had been coming from before. As soon as it made contact, glowing veins made their way up to JJ's face where her eyes burst open and she bolted upright with a gasp.

"Woah! What in the flipping krutack just happened?!" JJ exclaimed as she grasped the area where the creature had its spine in before she rapidly pulled it out.

"Hmph 'bout time you woke up from your beauty rest." Rocket tried to sound grumpy but couldn't stay that way because of how relieved he was that JJ was OK.

_I merely recharged you with the very life force that once kept this planet alive._ Gora hopped up to the bench to sit healed right in front of JJ.

"Uhhhh who're you?" JJ went to poke Gora's antennae before the spine reached over and abruptly stopped her.

"What the?!"

_Please don't, my antennae are extremely sensitive._

"Ok, I dunno what's goin' on, but-" JJ's confused exclaim was cut off when they heard loud rumblings coming from outside above them.

"Any chance that's just your buddies from before?" Peter asked Gora and she shook her head.

"Surrender the Subject or we will open fire!" A loud voice demanded from outside.

"Oh great just what we needed." Peter threw his hands up before making his way up to the cockpit.

"They found us?" JJ asked somewhat annoyed.

"Yeah and now that you're awake maybe we got a shot at gettin' away."

"Why? So they could just hunt us down again? No, I'm done running from these creeps and making you guys follow because of me." JJ clenched a fist to her chest as she squeezed her eyes shut and the light from before it lit up again, dying down only when JJ's eyes opened up again with small sparks lighting up in them.

"Stay here." JJ stated before she started walking out, leaving no room for anyone to protest.

"What's that Sparkplug up to?" Rocket grumbled as he pulled up the surveillance video of the outside showing that JJ was walking toward the two dropships of the Oajins that were hovering right outside only several feet off the ground.

A soft brush against his wrist alerted him to Gora's spike touching him as she mentally spoke,

_She is doing what she must to protect her new family…_

"Just don't do anything too stupid kid…"

_Meanwhile with JJ outside_

JJ stepped in front of the dropships with her hands up, but her eyes were lit up like stormy clouds and her hair was raised around her head in a static manner as small electric arcs rose from the ground to gather at the base of her boots.

"I want you to send a message to Kryjer for me!" JJ's raised hands turned to fists as electricity started to crackle around them, shooting toward the dropships and enveloping them in an eerie bluish-gray glow. Shouts of panic came from inside the ships as the pilots were wondering why their systems weren't working and that hey had been hacked as JJ finished up her threat,

"Tell him that I don't care what he has planned for me, that I will _never_ become his weapon and that if he gets _anywhere_ near my family, powers or no, I will do _everything_ I can to make him regret ever '_upgrading_' me." JJ's eyes were practically burning a bright blue as she gave one last thrust of her hands and the dropships' navigation systems were reprogrammed to hyperdrive themselves back to the Oajin's main ship.

Exhausted from overusing her powers twice in one day, JJ dropped her hands, closed her eyes, and fell down to her knees as her head bowed down a bit.

_JJ!_ Gora leaped down to the ground to help her up with her spines but she silently moaned and held her head with one hand while using the other to stand up.

"Will ya quit givin' me heart attacks." Rocket came over and punched JJ's knee, making her sway a bit but chuckled nonetheless as they led her back aboard the ship.

"Seriously just when I think you've reached your max, you still manage to keep surprisin' us." Peter gently clapped his hand on her shoulder seeing that she was still a little woozy.

"I have finally managed to fully rid myself of the marsh slime." Drax came up from the lower deck and everyone looked at him in disbelief,

"What? What did I miss?"

"Everything Drax, everything." JJ let out an exhausted laugh as she sat back, blowing a puff of air out in exhaustion.

_I suppose now you'll be wanting to leave this place…_ Gora spoke with JJ through soft contact to her wrist with her spine.

"Or you could come with us." JJ raised an eyebrow as she offered with a disgruntled,

"What?!" From Rocket before he was shooed out and everyone else also left after sensing the need to. After everyone left, Gora seemed to smirk before nodding and jumping up to sit by her side.

_I guess there is a certain appeal to adventuring around the cosmos in search of the others, when the time is right…_

JJ froze a bit hearing the last part of Gora's sentence remembering her own mother's words. Abruptly, a crash sounded from downstairs followed by angry yelling, making JJ smirk before saying,

"Let's just hope you can handle the mission of dealing with everyone aboard this krutack crazy ship."

_No problem._ Gora hopped down and was followed by JJ as she touched the walls of the ship and jump-started it to where they flew off of Chrysinthea's surface.

_Meanwhile with the Oajin's_

A fist smashed down on the table full of folders, diagrams, and charts as Kryjer had finished listening to the latest reports from the soldiers he had sent out to retrieve the subject.

"You may have eluded capture this time, Subject J75-4, but let's see you run from your own kind once they've been turned to the truth..."

Kryjer pulled out another map from underneath a folder that had the title "Possible Hideouts and Allies" written across the top in black ink with several planets and star systems circled and crossed out with one particular blue and green planet circled multiple times in red with a small flame symbol next to it.

AN- Sorry it's been a while since I've updated, but school has been a real killer to both my free time and to my creativity. I am still trying my absolute best to update chapters when I can, but I'm also working on a separate project that I hope to reveal soon once I finalize some drafts. This story will be held off for the second movie until I finish some more of my Avengers OC Insert story, so see you in the next movie.


	16. New Family, New Abilities

_Takes place right before Volume 2_

Gora's POV

_I would advise you not to do that..._ I deadpanned as my frustrations towards the raccoon began to arise.

"How 'bout you don't go tellin' me what's what?" Rocket groaned, slapping my spine away to prevent any more telepathic commentary from me, prompting me to roll my eyes.

The ship had been delayed in our voyage through space on our way to a "job" where the Guardians' services were required. As a result, we had to make a "pit stop" on a planet where Astra had gone to get the tools to repair the ship while the Terran, Zehoberei, and "Destroyer" had gone to restock on sustenance. I had stayed on the ship with the little walking sapling called "Groot" and infuriatingly arrogant Earth raccoon, Rocket, as he worked on his newest gun for the next mission. I had only been on the ship for a few weeks now, but that was plenty of time to see how dysfunctional everyone operated as proven by what occured next,

***Kaboom***

Following the midsized explosion that I shielded both myself and Groot from with my spines extending to create a shield in front of me, a small plume of smoke burst out leaving Rocket to cough as he waved the smoke away before growling in frustration and throwing a screwdriver to the wall.

_I attempted to warn you, by plugging that wire into that capacitor you disrupted the electrostatic field it stores the energy in and therefore it destabilized._ I explained while examining my paw and helping Groot reach a shelf where he began to attempt to chew on one of Rocket's weapons before he came over, annoyed, to get him down.

"What happened?" We looked to the door to see JJ standing there with a giant wrench in one hand while the other was cleaning the brightly colored fluid off her face with a dirty rag. After extending my spine out to her to communicate I began to explain,

_Rocket was-_ but was rudely cut off with,

"I was just working."

"OK..." JJ squinted in uncertainty before reporting, "Well I managed to figure out why the engines keep hiccuping, something was clogging up the intake valve. Now we just need to reboot the ship's system manually from its power grid."

"So do it then." Rocket stated as if it was the most obvious idea.

"I can't."

"And why not?"

"Because I can't reach the system from the outside. Whoever created the plans for this ship really messed up with the power grid's access point."

_You can reach it if you electroport inside and reboot it from the inside as the energy itself._ I suggested while cleaning my antennae.

"'Electro-' what?" They both questioned at the same time.

_You focus on your body becoming pure energy and you teleport via the electricity inside._

"Yeah I have no idea how to do that…" Astra admitted as she dropped the wrench back into a toolbox and sat down on the bench closest to Rocket.

It's simple, I will show you. I got up, prepared to teach her when we were interrupted by,

"Woah woah woah you think you can just come in here and start telling us what's what?"

_I only wish to help Astra._ I argued back.

"Her name's not Astra, not anymore."

_You don't know anything about what she's capable of, so who are you to be telling me that._ We were practically butting heads until Astra intervened putting a hand out to each of us to keep us separate.

"OK enough you two, I'm not a kid anymore, I don't need someone fighting my battles."

"Fine then, go with the freaky antennae 'Granite' or whatever and when she fails to 'teach' you, you know where I'll be." Rocket got back to work on his weapon as I scoffed and led her out of the room.

_I cannot seem to make heads or tails of that creature..._ I grumbled as we walked down the halls, keeping a spine on Astra's wrist to maintain a telepathic lingual connection.

"That's cause there's nothing 'like me 'cept me'." Astra quoted imitating his voice as she did so, prompting me to laugh a bit.

_Quite amusing Astra._

There was a silence before she told me,

"He is right on that though, Astra's not my name anymore..."

_And why not?_

"After Mom… sent me away I just wanted to forget about that place since it's not there anymore."

_But it is still there._

"Not in the way it used to be..."

_And Rocket knows this? Hence why he is disgruntled about my presence on this ship because he thinks that since I am from there I will bring those memories back for you?_

"I think so, but who knows." Astra shrugged before stopping in front of a section of the ship's wall that had a panel ripped out to reveal the wiring underneath.

"Here it is, the manual reboot is right behind all of this, but if I move any of this around, I have no idea what it could do."

_Alright, place both of your hands on the wiring and close your eyes._ I instructed and she did so.

_Now focus on your core, feel the energy under your hands and find a way to connect the two, call on your inner strength and imagine yourself becoming a part of the power._

"That's a lot to think about." Astra looked at me with one eye open.

_Then just focus on one thing; your home. The origin of your powers._

"I already told you it's gone and I don't wanna think about it."

_But you must if you wish to access your inner powers._ I urged her with ferocity.

"I don't want to!" Sparks flew up from the panel from her outburst.

_You have to!_ Her hands began to glow brighter as I continued to urge her until,

_**"I can't!"**_ A small explosion formed under her hands and sent her flying back into the wall behind her.

_Astra!_ I hurried over to her and extended my spines to help her onto her feet when she pushed them away and walked away hugging herself. I took it from her facial expression before she left that she wanted to be alone and I made my way back to Rocket's workshop.

"So ya failed big time or what?" I could practically hear the smugness in his voice meanwhile I stayed silent as I hopped onto the bench and curled my tail around myself as I lay down.

"OK, what'ja do wrong?" Rocket put down his tools as he came to lean against the bench close to me with a hint of concern in his facial expression. He allowed me to wrap a spine around his wrist willingly, much to my surprise, before explaining,

_She refuses to acknowledge where she came from..._

"That's cause it ain't there anymore."

_But it is, it may not seem the same as it did before he came, but that is why we must embrace it now more than ever, or else Chrysinthea will truly perish._

"That might make sense to you, but to her, everything she knew is gone and she's been trying to start over since then and now you come along telling her to go back there for her powers to work."

_If she felt this way, then why did she request for my inclusion on the team?_

"Who knows? Maybe she does care for her home deep down, but she doesn't want to have to rely on a hope that might not happen for strength."

_And what hope would that be?_

"That she'd find her sister like her mom wanted."

I processed this information, remembering Astra's sister Lumna before she had been sent away to the training grounds, the last time the two of them had seen each other, they had made a promise to each other to play alcula, a game among Chrysinthean children only after they have mastered their powers and therefore is an unofficial rite of passage from childhood to slightly older childhood.

_I suppose I have been pushing her to depend on that hope since arriving on this ship._

"A bunch I might add." Rocket added with a light smirk.

_Then I must attempt to teach her your way, by embracing what her new life is in the present moment._

"You're on your way." Rocket commented before breaking our connection to get back to work.

_On my way to what?_ I thought before shaking the thought off and going to find JJ.

I found her sitting in the kitchen eating the last Yaro Root in the bowl, looking down at the table in melancholy. Gently wrapping a spine around her wrist without startling her, I began to speak to her,

_JJ..._

"You hear to convince me to go back to a home that doesn't matter to me anymore?" She asked rather depressingly.

_No…_ I started, prompting JJ to groan in response, _I have been on this ship long enough to see that everyone aboard clashes in terms of perspectives, they are full of anger due to their past and do not trust others easily…_

"You done?"

_But you all have become a family through those conflicts and this bond that you share with the others, as I now see, is what you believe will keep you all together not just as a team, but as a family…_

JJ considered my words for a minute before replying,

"I guess you could say that. All of us, Rocket, Quill, Gamora, Drax, Groot and me, we all came together just to sell some power 'Infinite Stone' or whatever to some white-haired whackjob who said I was the only one of my kind left," JJ smiled a bit ruefully before she continued her speech,

"but after saving the universe, we decided to stay together cause we figured 'hey we make a pretty frickin' good a-hole kicking team' and now… I don't want to lose this family like I did my last one..."

_She's encountered an Infinity Stone?!_ I thought in alarm, but I did not let JJ catch onto my surprise as I told her,

_Then I stand corrected, that fierce protectiveness for this new life you have is what you need to focus on in order to access your full capabilities._

"Then let's do it." JJ stood up with a new determination in her eyes before quickly finishing off her Yaro Root and making her way back toward the panel, but I stayed behind, ruminating on what this new piece of information would develop into.

_If _he_ is looking for those stones, then JJ's home will not be the only one to be devastated by his wrath… I can only hope that when that day comes, we will be ready…_

I was making my way back to Rocket's workshop when Quill, Gamora, and Drax came running onto the ship with bags of groceries in hand, but they were extremely quick to shut the door behind them, cluing me into the fact that they were in trouble. Connecting to Gamora, albeit with a threatening glare from her before making contact, I questioned,

_What did they do this time?_

"Why do you assume we are to blame?" Drax asked rather pointedly.

"How would you even know what she's asking?" Gamora questioned him,

"I too am extremely intuitive."

_I highly doubt that._ I spoke to Gamora and she smirked a bit before informing me,

"These two decided to try to pick a fight with a shopkeeper who happened to be armed and here we are."

"Yeah, please tell me the ship is fixed otherwise we're dead." Quill asked, nervously looking to the door.

Abruptly, there was a pop of sparks that sent out a small streak of electricity from the wall and coalesced into JJ.

"What the he-" Quill's exclamation was cut off with Gamora commenting with a hint of pride in her voice,

"You've learned a new ability."

"Yep, and we're ready to take off from this place."

A blast on the door alerted us to the presence of the wronged shopkeeper on the other side, prompting Quill to hurry up to the cockpit with a quick,

"On it."

"Come on, I'll race you to the workshop to scare the crap out of Rocket." JJ touched the wall next to her and disappeared in a small flurry of sparks.

Smiling lightly as I ran back to the workshop, I arrived in time to see JJ appeared right in front of Rocket as he screamed and took cover in a corner, causing JJ to break down into a fit of laughter.

"Next time you try that on me, I will not hesitate to shoot you." Rocket threatened before dropping the tough facade and saying,

"So you managed to figure it out?"

"With a little help from Gora."

I nodded my head down to show that it was my pleasure before Rocket instructed her,

"Tell Star Munch that we got a new score to get to on Sovereign."

"Will do." Before touching the wall and teleporting out again.

_Are you certain you wish to take this particular job?_ I asked Rocket after connecting to him.

"What? What's the problem now?"

_The Sovereign are not too fond of Chrysintheans and if she crosses them in any way, they will not hesitate to kill her._ I explained with worry lacing my telepathic voice.

"With that nifty trick you just taught her, I wouldn't worry too much about her."

_'Nifty'? You're not turning soft are you?_ I smirked a bit before he scoffed and retorted gruffly,

"I ain't soft!" Before shaking me off to add his newest gun to his collection of weapons.

_There's the Rocket I've grown to accept._ I smiled before walking out of the room and going to watch as the ship was directed toward the Sovereign's system.


	17. Sovereign A-Holes

Short AN- A little heads up before Vol. 2 begins, as you can probably tell by the chapter title, since there's more cursing in the second movie and during notable lines, I'm only going to be lightening up on the cursing and using asterisks every so often so tread lightly. Now onto Vol. 2!

JJ's POV

"Alright we're here!" Peter announced through the speakers after I changed into my new outfit; a blue shirt dress with my black leggings underneath, a belt similar to Rocket's worn over it, silver knee pads that channeled some of my electrical energy, and my clunky goggles had been replaced with light blue goggle-like frames, and my old gloves had been replaced with bright yellow ones that looked the same, but didn't have the conveyors inside since I felt like I'm in control of my powers more.

"Come on kid let's go!" I heard Rocket's voice from right outside my room.

"I'm goin'!" I yelled back as I pulled on my new boots, my knee-length ones had been replaced with silver and gray ankle boots. Rocket helped me design them to send out smaller versions of my orb bombs, but instead of explosions, the orbs would connect to each other to create an electric energy barrier and were controlled via a neural link in my goggles, just like the ones the Nova Corp used with their Star Blaster ships to be used as a hover platform or even a shield.

After stepping outside my room and up to the bridge where the Sovereign homeworld was coming into view, I was met with,

"What's with the new look?"

"What? I can't change up my look?"

"No, we're just wondering why you'd want to?" Peter explained.

"I think she looks nice." We all turned our attention to Gora as she walked in from Rocket's workshop where he had created a small device that attached to her forehead and let her speak to us without having to use one of her spines.

"We're entering the Sovereign homeworld." Gamora informed us as we started to enter the planet's atmosphere.

"Good, the sooner we complete this mission, the sooner we can get out of here." Gora grimaced before leaping up onto the seat to clean her paws.

"Hey why are you so on edge about this place?" Quill asked and Gora answered,

"Because the Sovereign are a perfectionist race, obsessed with having everything and everyone on their planet exactly the same, a concept that was frowned upon on Chrysinthea. As such, the Sovereign viewed our planet and its people as a virus."

"To Hell with what they think. Let's just get this over with so we can collect our payment." Rocket interjected rudely as he finished cleaning off the dust on the gun he had chosen to use for this mission.

_Short Time Skip_

After landing the Milano, we all got out by the place where the batteries we were supposed to be protecting were stored. I was making some last-minute adjustments to my boots' orb distribution system when Gamora came up to me with Gora by her side.

"Are you sure you're up for this mission? We wouldn't judge if you want to stay aboard the ship." Gamora questioned with some sympathy.

"I don't care what they think, I know who and what I am." I cut in quickly trying to leave no room for an argument, but Gora assured me,

"If at any time they attempt to bring harm to you, I will protect you until the bitter end."

"No need to get all noble on me Gora, I can handle myself."

"I am your guardian, I failed my duty once... I will not fail again..." Gora looked sad before shaking it off and walking away.

Shaking my own head, I got back to making the modifications of my boots when a couple of the orbs got spit out and Gamora helped me get them back.

"Showtime, a-holes! It'll be here any minute!" Peter announced as he looked at the readings on his device.

"Which will be its loss." Gamora readied the gun she brought along.

"I thought your thing was a sword?"

"We've been hired to stop an interdimensional beast from feeding on those batteries and I'm going to stop it with a sword?"

"It's just... swords were your thing and guns were mine, but I guess we're both doing guns now. I just didn't know that."

"Drax, why aren't you wearing one of Rocket's Aero-Rigs?" Gamora directed to Drax, noting he wasn't wearing said device.

"It hurts." Drax answered simply.

"Hurts?"

"I have sensitive nipples."

I choked a little trying to contain my laughter while Rocket full-on burst out,

"Wa-ha-ha-ha! My nipples hurt! Oh, goodness me!"

"What about him, what's he doing?" Drax motioned to the speaker system Rocket was wiring.

"I'm finishing this so we can listen to tunes while we work."

"_How_ is that important?"

"_Blame Quill_, he's the one who loves music so much!"

"No, I actually agree with Drax on this, that's hardly important right now." Quill butted in, but Rocket thought he was being sarcastic from the way he answered,

"Oh, ok, suuure Quill." While winking with his eye multiple times.

"No, seriously, I side with Drax."

"No I understand that, you're being very serious right now." I rolled my eyes as Rocket winked some more.

"I can clearly see you winking!" Drax pointed out.

"Damn it, am I using my left eye?"

Behind us, Groot was terrorizing a couple of Orloni's by pushing them away and punching one in the face.

"I am _Groot_."

"They _were not _looking at you funny."

"I am _Groooot_." Groot kicked the floor in a pouty and whiny way.

"Well I'm sorry you're _sooooo_ bored but just stay by Gora, while we deal with-" I was cut off as a colorful portal opened up in the sky and a giant Abilisk came out landing on the ground in a mass of swirling tentacles and rainbow-colored roars.

"-that." I finished my sentence before flicking my goggles over my face.

"Oh, well that's intense." Rocket moaned as everyone got to work trying to kill the creature.

Thumping my boot down two times, some orbs were dispensed and created an energy barrier between them to create a platform for me to jump onto and fly around on as I blasted at the creature.

Down below, I saw that Groot managed to plug the speaker cords together as one of Quill's songs I could, more or less, stand came on and he started to dance around in his own little way with Gora trying to follow him, but kept getting hit back by the flailing tentacles.

"Groot!" I heard Quill yell before getting pushed away.

"Ouch..." I muttered as I narrowly avoided a swipe to my hover platform and fired some of my bombs at the creature.

A few minutes of avoiding swipes and firing bombs later, I got knocked off my hover platform, but I managed to redirect my fall toward where Drax had crushed the speakers and Groot was angrily hitting him even though Gora was trying to hold him back with her spines.

"We're not winning are we?" I asked sarcastically as I got up from where I landed painfully, holding my side before calling all the orbs back into my boots by clicking the heels together once.

"What do you think?!" Gamora yelled, annoyed with my obvious question as she reloaded her gun before Drax noted,

"The beast's hide is too thick to be pierced from the outside! I must cut through it from the inside." Before starting to laugh maniacally and ran forward despite me and Gamora's protests,

"What? No, wait a minute! Drax!"

"Drax don't!"

He lept right into the creature's mouth, causing Quill to come over to us to question,

"What is he doing?!"

"He said that the skin is too thick to be pierced on the outside so-" Gamora started to explain before Quill cut her off,

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"We tried telling him that!" I butted in.

"Skin has the same level of thickness on the inside as it is on the outside!"

"I realize that!" Gamora stated before Quill devised,

"There's a cut on its neck! Rocket, JJ, get it to look up!"

"I'm on it!" I summoned my orbs again and used them to fly right up to the beast before chucking a bomb right in its face and Rocket fired several rounds of bullets at it yelling,

"Hey you giant sea monkey, up here!"

We both flew around right out of its reach as it began to rear its head to try and catch us.

"Look out!" I tried to warn Rocket and Quill before the three of us ended up getting snagged by the tentacles right before Gamora leaped up and used her blade to slice through the cut and down its throat, releasing us and killing the creature.

A few seconds later, Drax emerged from the cut, dripping with yellow blood before yelling victoriously as we all looked at him in irritation,

"Yes! I have single-handedly vanquished the beast!" He stopped laughing after Groot threw a pebble at his face,

"What?"

After Drax cleaned himself up and everyone put their equipment away, we started to ready ourselves to meet the Sovereign leader.

"What are they called again?" Drax asked as he looked at the batteries.

"Anulax batteries." Quill answered while pulling on his coat.

"Harbulary batteries."

"That's nothing like what I just said. But they're worth thousands of units apiece... which is why the Sovereign hired us to protect them." Right as Quill said that, I saw from the corner of my eye that Rocket pulled one of the batteries from place and was looking at it with a sly expression.

"Careful what you say around these folks. They're easily offended. The cost of transgression is death." Quill continued to warn us.

"Such as the two of us being in their mere presence." Gora grumbled as she walked alongside us with Groot riding on her back and flicking her antenna to her annoyance.

A few minutes later, we were in the presence of the High Priestess Ayesha and most of the people of the world, and I saw immediately that Gora wasn't kidding about them all being the same and feeling superior with their golden get-up.

"We thank you, Guardians, for putting your lives on the line. We could not risk the lives of our own Sovereign citizens. Every citizen is born exactly as designed by the community. Impeccable, both physically and mentally. We control the DNA of our progeny... germinating them in birthing pods." Ayesha lectured and I grimaced in disgust before I started whispering to Gora as Quill started "flirting" with her.

"Uhhhh I see what you mean now about them being repetitive."

"Now you see why I was reluctant to come here? Being in their mere presence is unsettling."

"That's fair en-" I was cut off as a hooded figure was brought forward and brought to their knees, only for it to be revealed to be Nebula, who was glaring at me and Gamora in particular.

"Family reunion. Yay." Quill tried to joke, but I harshly elbowed him and hissed,

"Not the time Quill."

"I understand she is your sister." Ayesha directed to Gamora who just took Nebula by the arm saying,

"She's worth no more to me than the bounty due for her on Xandar."

"Our soldiers apprehended her attempting to steal the batteries. Do with her as you please." At that, Gamora started to lead her back to the Milano.

"And we would be happy to get rid of the Critos and her pet for you."

"_Pet_?" Gora bristled from next to me and I put a hand out to signal her to calm down as I faced Ayesha with a stone-faced look.

"With all due respect, Joules and Gora are as much a part of our team as the rest of us and both played a crucial role in defending your planet and the batteries." Quill spoke up in respect, making Gora scoff quietly and roll her eyes.

"Very well, they shall be spared."

"I'll spare _you_ from a zap you'll never recover from..." I grumbled low enough to where she couldn't hear me, but Gora did from the strangely satisfied expression she gave me.

"We thank you, High Priestess Ayesha." Quill started to turn to leave with us behind him when,

"What is your heritage, Mr. Quill?"

"My mother is from Earth."

"And your father?"

"He ain't from Missouri. That's all I know."

"I see it within you. An unorthodox genealogy. A hybrid that seems particularly... reckless."

"You know, they told me you people were conceited douchebags, but that isn't true at all." Rocket spoke up before winking not so subtly again, making the people gasp.

"Oh, sh*t. I'm using my wrong eye again, aren't I? I'm sorry." Drax picked him up by the scruff of his neck as he continued to babble, "That was meant to be behind your back."

"Let us take our leave before he costs us our lives." Gora grumbled as she followed the others out and I fell behind.

"Joules, was it?" I turned back to the priestess and answered with my arms crossed,

"Yeah?"

"Be warned, next time we catch you in our midst, Guardian or no, we will not be so lenient."

"I'll keep that in mind when you're in need of our services again." I replied in mock respect before walking out and whispering under my breath, "Pfft whatever..."

The doors to the palace slamming shut behind me, suddenly giving me a sense of impending doom that I quickly shook off.

2308 Words

AN- So, same with my Avengers OC Insert, I only have chapters up until the second scenes done, but I am doing my best to update all my stories on both my accounts every Friday or sometime during the weekend so I will attempt to keep that schedule.


	18. Altruism

3rd Person POV

"Let's get baldy back to Xandar and retrieve that bounty!" Rocket announced almost upbeat as he started to fly the Milano off of Sovereign. After Gamora, Peter, and Drax went to go do their own thing, JJ and Gora joined Rocket and Groot on the bridge as he piloted and Groot plastered himself on the window looking down on the planet.

"Argh! My boots busted again!" JJ thumped her foot down several times, trying to get the orbs out, but they started smoking and sparking up to where she had to pull them off and use the fire extinguisher on them.

"At least they worked during the fight, now we know the tech works." Rocket noted before adding, "Thanks to my _genius_ contribution."

"If I recall, JJ designed most of the inner workings, all you did was supply the explosives." Gora critiqued as she preened her tail before Groot peeled himself from the glass to try to catch her tail.

"Yeah the same explosives that ended up savin' our hides."

JJ rolled her eyes at that before continuing to try to fix her boots before a thought occurred to her and she asked,

"Hey Gora? Why did they hate our people so much? I mean, I get why we hate them, but why do they hate us?"

"For starters, our people had no quarrel with them, not until the day they attempted to launch an attack on the planet, luckily they couldn't get past the atmospheric storms and declared it a lost cause."

"So in addition to narcissistic nutcases, they're also cowards?"

"In any case, because no two Chrysintheans looked alike, even within families, the Sovereign viewed our people as imperfections, and with all the 'Observers' that would leave the planet to live and report on those planets, we became known to them as a virus to be rid of."

"That's messed up." Rocket commented from his seat.

"Yeah…" JJ added, already having lost interest in the subject as she managed to fix her boots with a triumphant whoop of joy before standing up and flipping her goggles over her face with a quick nod.

"Think fast!" Rocket threw a wrench to JJ, who thumped her boot down and sent a few orbs out, directing them to hover in front of her face and create an energy barrier, stopping the wrench from hitting her and repelling it back to where it came from.

"Ouch!"

"Should've thrown somethin' smaller." JJ commented before calling the orbs back in and saying, "Imma go see if Gamora wants to practice spar."

Heading down to the part of the Milano where Gamora was about to lock her sister up, said sister noticed the recently filled bowl of fruit and demands,

"I am hungry. Hand me some of that yaro root."

"No. It's not ripe yet. And I hate you."

"You hate me?! You left me there while you stole that stone for yourself. Yet here you stand, a hero. I will be free of these shackles soon enough, and I'll kill you, I swear it."

Her threat goes untaken as Gamora calmly responded,

"No. You're going to live out the rest of your days in a prison on Xandar, _wishing_ you could."

Nebula jolted forward making JJ flinch but not Gamora as an alarm started to sound from above.

"Come on, let's go see what's up." Gamora patted JJ's arm before heading up, JJ staying behind long enough to notice the death glare that Nebula sent her way specifically.

"This is weird, we got a Sovereign fleet, approaching from the rear." Peter announced as the two came up to sit in their seats in the cockpit.

"Why would they do that?" Gamora questioned.

"Probably because Rocket stole some of their batteries." Drax answered straightforwardly.

"Dude!" Rocket called out in a betrayed tone causing Drax to respond in an expressionless tone,

"Oh, right. He didn't steal one of those. I don't know why they're after us. What a mystery this is."

Right before shots were fired from the space crafts and Peter did his best to maneuver the Milano around them before he yelled to Rocket,

"_What_ were you _thinking_?!"

"Dude, it was really easy to steal."

"_That's_ your defense?" Gamora deadpanned.

"_Come on_. You saw how that high- priestess talked down to us! Now I'm teaching her a lesson!"

The ship was spun around to avoid another round of shots before Peter snarked sarcastically,

"Oh! I didn't realize your motivation was altruism. A shame the Sovereign have mistaken your intentions and are trying to kill us."

However the sarcasm was lost on Rocket as he responded,

"Exactly."

"I was being sarcastic!"

"Oh no! You're supposed to use a sarcastic voice! Now I look foolish!"

"Can we please just put the bickering on hold until after we survive the massive space battle?!" Gamora reminded them of the more pressing issue at hand.

"More incoming!" Quill announced as more ships appeared in front of the ship.

"Good! I want to kill some guys!" Rocket started to yell as he fired the ship's weapons at the ships, decimating them faster than they were taking shots.

"You're not killing anyone. Those ships are all remotely piloted." Gamora pointed out and they all saw that the fronts of the ships were essentially screens and the pilots displayed on them were mostly likely safely back on the planet.

"Golden wusses..." JJ muttered from her seat where she was monitoring the damage that the Milano was taking.

"What's the closest habitable planet?" Quill asked as he continued to navigate the ship around the blasts as best he could.

"It's called Berhert." Gamora pulled up a planet on the screen in front of her.

"How many jumps?"

"Only one. But the access point is 47 clicks away. And it's through that Quantum Asteroid Field over there."

Everyone looked to the side where Gamora had pointed and saw a huge field where glowing asteroids were disappearing and reappearing in random, unpredictable patterns within space. Without hesitation, Peter flies the Milano straight into the field, much to everyone's worry.

"Quill, to make it through that, you'd have to be the greatest pilot in the universe." Drax points out as Peter smirks and starts to say,

"Lucky for us"

Before Rocket cuts him off with,

"I am."

"I-"

Rocket switches over the manual controls to his seat as he begins to steer the ship around the asteroids that appear directly in front of them only for Peter to steal them back a few seconds later.

"What are you doing?!" Rocket asked with indignation.

"I've been flying this rig since I was ten years old." Peter argued.

"I was cybernetically engineered to pilot a spacecraft!" Rocket counters before switching the controls over again.

"You were cybernetically engineered to be a douchebag." Peter switches the controls back to him.

"Stop it!" Gamora tried to interject but was ignored as Rocket told Peter,

"Quill, later on tonight you're gonna lay down in your bed and there's gonna be something squishy in your pillowcase and you're gonna be, like, 'what's this?' and it's gonna be because _I put a turd in there_."

Before he flips the switch back to him.

"You put your turd in my bed, I shave you." Peter threatened.

"Oh it won't be my turd, it will be Drax's."

To which Drax laughed and announced

"I have famously huge turds."

"We're about to die, and _this_ is what we're discussing?" Gamora deadpanned and JJ responds with a mild,

"Just like back in the Kyln."

"Only then we weren't flying for our lives."

"Mmm weren't we though?"

"Fair enough..."

As they were chatting, Rocket and Peter were still fighting over who would steer the ship resulting in them getting hit hard enough by an asteroid in the back that it smashed through and the harsh vacuum of space threatened to suck everyone and everything out. Nebula was almost sucked through the hole if she hadn't been shackled to a post and up on deck, Groot was almost taken by the winds after he lost his grip on Rocket's ear if Peter hadn't caught him and tossed him back to Drax, much to Groot's dismay as he started kicking and punching him so he was passed off to Gora as she kept a tight grip on him with her spines as Peter quickly typed in a command to make an energy field cover the damage left by the asteroid.

"Idiots!" They all heard Nebula yell up from below deck.

"Well, that's what you get when Quill flies." Rocket comments, earning a whack to the head with another wrench from Gamora.

"Ow! Again?!"

"Uh guys? We still have a Sovereign craft following us and our weapons are down!" JJ announced from the video feed she was watching from the ship's rear.

"Twenty clicks to the jump." Gamora reported right before a blast from the Sovereign craft took out a large chunk of the wing.

"Come." Drax thumped a hand on JJ's shoulder, prompting her to follow him as they went down to the ship's lower bay where they both saw Nebula trying to get a hold of a yaro root, but Drax kicked it away saying,

"It's not ripe."

"What are you doing?" JJ asked as Drax attached a cable to himself and grabbed a spacesuit from the rack before pulling down one of the larger guns Rocket stored down there and held it over to JJ.

"Fine." She understood what he wanted her to do and touched a hand to it to supercharge it with some of her electrical energy before he went over to the energy field and hit a button to create a second one behind him as he disabled the first one to go flying out into space, tethered to the ship by the line by still swung around wildly as the ship is still maneuvering around the asteroid field.

"Die, spaceship!" Drax fires once and hits the bullseye as the remaining Sovereign craft is blasted to pieces.

"Alright time to come back in." JJ walked over to the spool of line that was keeping Drax tethered to the ship, but was tossed to the ground as the ship righted itself after making it out of the asteroid field.

For a few moments it seemed like they were home free until dozens of crafts came out from the sides, having gone around the asteroid field and JJ looked out at them from inside the ship before uttering,

"Crap..."

And the ships began to fire on the Milano, but seconds later a huge light went off like a firework and decimated every single ship. Squinting at the view through the window, JJ could've sworn she saw a giant white ship with a tiny man on the top of it.

"What the heck is going on up there?!" JJ yelled up to the others until she hears a creaking noise coming from the cable spool and sees that it's about to break off.

"Nonononononono!" She darted over to the spool and grabbed a hold of it as the cracks around the base kept growing.

JJ screamed as it completely detached from the wall and almost took her out until she felt something wrap around her wrist as she held onto the spool with one hand and the other had been caught by Gora's spines as she struggled to keep a grip on JJ before Gamora rushed over and took another of Gora's spines in her hand.

At the same time, Rocket and Peter managed to get the ship through the jump point and were trying to make a controlled crash landing, but they were only slightly successfully as the Milano skidded along the forested surface of the planet, mowing down the trees while Drax was harshly bounced off of them before the ship made an abrupt stop and dropped down, more or less in one piece.

Outside the ship, Gora had latched herself to JJ's torso and used her spines to enclose JJ as best as she could to protect her as they both dangled from one of the trees that hadn't been flattened by the ship by one spine. Meanwhile Gamora and Drax were both on the ground before the silence was broken by Drax's chuckles and exclamation,

"That was awesome!"

"I would call none of that 'awesome'." Gora spoke up from where she and JJ were being lowered to the ground before starting to lick herself clean right before one wing of the ship completely broke off and crashed to the forest floor, startling them all before the silence was broken with,

"Again I say… Crap..."


	19. Daddy Quill?

JJ's POV

"Look at this! Where's the other half of our ship?!" Gamora screamed as everyone gathered around to survey the damage the Milano took.

"My ship." Quill corrected, only to get yelled at,

"Either one of you could have gotten us through that field, if you had flown with what's between your _ears_ instead of what's between your _legs_!"

"If what's between my legs had a hand on it, I guarantee I could have landed this ship."

"I still say you both would've crashed us either way..." I mumbled, earning a swat to the back of my head from Gora.

"Peter. We almost died because of your arrogance."

"More like because he stole Anulax batteries!" Quill pointed to Rocket in accusation and Gora and I each glared at him before she swatted him.

"They're called _Harbulary_ batteries." Drax argued before Quill argued back,

"No, they're not!"

"You know why I did it, Star-Munch? Huh?" Rocket sassed.

"I'm not going to answer to 'Star-Munch.'"

"I did it because I _wanted to_."

"Dick." Quill grumbled before Rocket yelled,

"What are we even talking about this for? We just had a little man save us by blowing up fifty ships!"

"How little?"

Rocket roughly measured with his finger and thumb, which added up to an inch,

"Like this?"

"A little one-inch man saved us?" Gamora questioned skeptically.

"Well, if he got closer I'm sure he'd be much larger." Rocket's response made me facepalm and groan internally as Quill stated,

"Yeah that's how eyesight works, you stupid raccoon."

"Don't call me a raccoon!"

"I'm sorry, I took it too far... I meant 'trash panda.'"

Rocket looks at me and Drax unsurely.

"Is that better?"

"I don't know." Drax responded and I just shrugged with my arms crossed.

"It's worse. It's _so_ much worse." Quill smirked.

"You son-of-a-!" Rocket jumped forward and tried to snap at Quill as I told everyone,

"It's true, I saw him too."

"Of course you agree with him." Drax stated like it was obvious.

"What's that s'posed to mean?" I looked to Drax in irritated annoyance.

"Is he not your master? Like a pet?"

"I ain't no one's pet!" I was about to fry some sense into his hollow noggin when I felt Gora's spines snag both my wrists as sparks crackled around my fists.

"Don't!" Gora shouted as she struggled to keep me from frying Drax as Rocket kept trying to bite Quill before Nebula pointed out to us,

"Someone followed you through the jump point."

Sure enough, the blue psychopath was right and the white, ovalish spaceship from before was coming down from the sky. We all stop fighting and get in a circle back to back; sparks crackled above my palms, Rocket cocked his gun, Drax got the gun he used before ready, Quill got out his blasters, and Gamora kept ahold of her sister when she tried to bargain with us,

"Set me free. You'll need my help."

"I'm not a fool, Nebula." Gamora declined.

"You're a fool if you deprive yourself a hand in combat."

"You'll attack me the moment I let you go."

"No, I won't."

"Y'know you'd think an evil supervillain would learn how to properly lie." Quill pointed out.

"Or at least know that she's not in a position to not be making deals with us." Gora added as the ship came closer to the ground to land.

"I bet it's the one-inch man!" Drax declared before I heard some shuffling behind me and Gora and we turned to see Groot coming out from the ship and climbing down from the ramp to the ground.

"I am Groot?" He questioned.

"No Groot, we aren't safe yet. Gora?" I told him before turning to Gora.

"Got'im." Gora reached over and kept him on her back and he started to entertain himself by batting her antennae around.

The ship finally landed in front of us by half burying itself into the ground and the yellow liquid stuff on the side suddenly opened making us all prepare ourselves. From inside, two shadows revealed themselves to be a man in old-looking clothing with frizzy white hair and a beard and a woman in green clothing that frankly looked like a humanoid bug with antennae that were similar to Gora's and huge black eyes that averted the man's gaze as he smiled before he spoke,

"After all these years, I've found you."

"Who the hell are you?" Quill asked.

"I figured my rugged good looks would make that obvious. My name is Ego. And I'm your Dad, Peter."

Quill stared at him as everyone backed away a little and I muttered,

"Just when I thought today couldn't get any more weird..."

_Time Skip to Night_

Just before the sun fully set on the planet and the moons rose, we all managed to get a fire going and were gathered around it. Drax was eating a bowl of blue, glowing mush while Rocket sat across from him on a log like everyone else and Groot was in my lap trying to catch the small lights that flew from my fingers every time I clicked my fingers together and Gora sat next to me grooming herself for the millionth time as Ego started eating at the same time as he started with his life story,

"I hired Yondu to pick you up when your mother passed away. but instead of returning you, Yondu kept you. I have no clue as to why."

"Oh I'll tell you why. Because I was a skinny little kid who could squeeze into places adults couldn't, it made it easier for thieving." Quill explained.

"Well I've been trying to track you down ever since."

"I thought Yondu was your father." Drax spoke up making Quill, and frankly everyone else, look at him weirdly.

"What? We've been together this whole time and you thought Yondu was my actual, blood relative?"

"You look exactly alike."

"_Yon's blue_." Rocket pointed out in disbelief.

"_No_ he's not my _father_. Yondu was the guy who _abducted_ me, kicked the crap out of me so I could learn how to fight, and he kept me in terror by threatening to eat me."

"_Eat_ you?!"

"Yeah."

"Oh that son-of-a-"

"Hey! Child present!" I scolded as I put my hands on the sides of Groot's head as he looked at them with his mouth open.

"How'd you locate us now?" Gamora asked.

"Well even where I reside, out past the edge of what's known, we've heard tell of the man they call Star Lord."

He stands up after putting his dish down before saying,

"Say we head out that way now? Your associates are welcome, even that triangle-faced monkey there."

Pointing to Rocket at the end of his sentence, making him touch his nose while looking self-conscious about it until I lightly punched his arm with one hand and shook my head.

"I promise you, it's like no place you've ever seen. And there I can explain your very special heritage, and finally be the father I've always wanted to be."

There was a silence before he spoke again to say,

"'Scuse me. I gotta take a whizz."

And walked away to take care of his business, leaving us to consider our options.

"I'm not buying it." Quill whispered before Gamora suggested they go take a walk and off they went.

I sat with Groot starting to fall asleep in my lap as I gently patted his back while Gora was fully asleep next to me with her tail blanketing her so I carefully snuck Groot underneath her tail and they both snoozed away.

Then, I went to, carefully, sit on the log close to Nebula as Drax was still eating before the bug-lady from before introduced herself,

"I am Mantis."

Smiling so wide it was really creepy and I leaned back a little as Drax questioned,

"What are you doing?"

"Smiling. I hear it is the thing to do to make people like you."

"Not if you do it like that."

"Oh. I was raised alone on Ego's planet. I do not understand the intricacies of social interaction."

"Well Lesson #1: No one says 'intricacies of social interaction'." I tried to offer that piece of advice until she responded with,

"What is Lesson #2?"

"Nevermind…" I put my head in my hands in exhaustion, both from the battle earlier and this conversation.

"Can I pet your puppy? It is adorable." I looked back up to see Mantis was talking about Rocket as he was cleaning himself by licking his paws and I looked over with an arched eyebrow as Drax nodded and answered,

"Yes…"

She went to pet Rocket and managed to touch his head before he whirled around and tried to snap at her hand as she screamed,

"AHH!"

Before pulling her hand back to see if she had been bitten before Drax laughed raucously before saying,

"That is called a practical joke!"

Making Mantis giggle in response as she admitted,

"I liked it very much!"

"I just made it up."

They both continued to laugh together while Nebula shook her head with disbelief.

"I know what you're thinking," I leaned over to whisper to Nebula, "And yes, he's always like this. 'Biggest idiots in the galaxy' as Gamora said once."

She just scoffed in response and turned away, making me half shrug and ask,

"What'd I say?"

"Guardians." Quill called out as he and Gamora came back from their walk.

The five of us gathered around further away from Ego, Mantis, and Nebula and Gora and Groot still slept on the log to hear what Quill had to say,

"New plan." He started looking at all of us.

_Cut to Morning_

"You're leaving me with that fox?!" Nebula yelled angrily as Gamora passed her with her bag on her back.

Behind her, Rocket was using nanites to fix the ship while I was working on fixing the ship's telemetry system's circuits.

"He's not a fox." Gamora shot back to her sister before telling Rocket, "Shoot her if she does anything suspicious. Or if you feel like it."

"Ok." He told her without even looking up from his work before I gave her a thumbs up for him before snarking to Nebula as soon as Gamora was out of hearing range,

"Hey it's not exactly a fun time for us either."

Before looking over to see Gamora saying goodbye to Groot as he started shedding a few tears.

"Hey it'll just be a couple days. We'll be back before Rocket and JJ are finished fixing the ship."

Groot sadly waved bye before Gora reached up to him and helped him onto her back as she watched them leave as well with a waving spine. Just as Quill was leaving the ship with Drax in front of him, he stopped near Rocket, who told him straight up,

"Hope daddy isn't as big of a dick as you, orphan boy."

"_What_ is your _goal_ here? To get everyone to hate you? 'Cause it's working." Quill asked before leaving with Gamora and Drax to go with Quill's dad and Mantis, the song that was playing in the ship's lyrics getting to my head, making me wonder,

_Is our chain breaking…?_

AN- Sorry about the delay, Friday was my little sister's birthday and then yesterday I got my phone taken away so I had to wait until today to publish this chapter without drawing too much attention to myself for it.


	20. Ravager Ambush

JJ's POV

"It's _not ripe_." I took the bowl of fruit out of Nebula's reach after she tried to reach for them _again_ as I gathered some tools from around the workshop.

After that I headed back up to the cockpit where I started to help Rocket with repairs to the ship.

"OK, I managed to get the ship's navigation system back online." I reported after a little while to Rocket as he was working on the steering system.

"Alright, we just need to fix the ship's thruster and build a whole new wing and then we can get off this planet."

"Thank the Orinix..." Gora spoke up from where she was sitting and Groot was burying himself in her bushy tail.

"The what?" Rocket arched a furry brow in question before he remembered, "Oh yeah, the big glowy power source of your old planet."

"It is much more than that, but in short yes the '_b-b-big-g-g g-g-g-looooooowyyyyyyy _'." Gora shook her head and pawed at the device resting on her forehead that translated her thoughts into speech as it started to malfunction.

"Oh _greeeaat_..." Rocket leaped off the console to get the device off as it started to spark up in his paws so he tossed it to me and I caught it with one hand. Closing my hand to form a fist around the device, smoke started to leak through my fingers so I opened my fist back up to show that the power had been drained out of it to stop any more damage being done to the device.

"Power's been drained, should be safe to fix now." I tossed it back to Rocket as he started to open it up to see what was wrong with it.

"Keep the console stabilized while I fix this thing."

"On it." I walked over to the open panel with wires waiting to be plugged into their positions when I felt a burning pain in my head and I seized my head with both hands as they sparked up, giving a shout when the pain doubled and through a bright light I was seeing, I could see the panel and wires in front of me sparking up.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I could hear Rocket's voice somewhere behind me but when I turned to look at him I only saw red outlines in the shape of Rocket and Gora next to him.

Suddenly, I felt angry and defensive as a snarl ripped its way out of my mouth and I pounced toward them. Luckily, Gora managed to keep me hanging in the air with her spines before the headache went away and I was left dangling in the air as I rubbed my forehead tiredly and spat out something in my mouth that landed on the metal ground with a loud sizzle and glowed a bright blue.

"W-what happened?" I asked as I was let down to the ground with Rocket and Gora looking at me with concern and Groot looked scared.

"You goin' all zap crazy and almost roasting us alive is what happened." Rocket snarked, but I could tell he was just hiding the fact that he was freaked out.

"Gora?" I turned to her as she held out a spine and I took it to hear what she had to say,

_I still don't understand how you can be experiencing it so young… _She thought and was looking away as I listened and Rocket grabbed the spine linking us to listen in.

"Experiencing what?" He demanded to know.

"Like Terrans, all adolescent Chrysintheans undergo a transformation of sorts where they will be able to tap into their core abilities with more ease and gain their marks."

"English please." Rocket gave Gora a bored, half-lidded gaze before I thought out loud,

"I'll get new powers and... marks?"

_Yes, but before that happens, over time, you'll begin to lose control of yourself and your abilities. You'll become aggressive toward anything and anyone._

"Great so I'll basically become an unstoppable hyper-charged monster?" I cheered sarcastically.

_Not exactly, once you reach peak unruliness, all that is required to bring you back is to subject you to a powerful electrical charge._

"So you'll be gettin' a taste o' your own medicine." Rocket smiled evilly as he clapped and rubbed his paws together.

"Greeeaat..." I mumbled before asking, "When will my next… frenzy be?"

_It's hard to predict... It could range from a few hours to a few weeks…_

"Again I say, greeeeaaat..." I sat down in one of the seats and put my face in my hands at the thought of attacking them until I felt a small paw pat my shoulder and I looked up to see Rocket standing there.

"Relax, next time it happens, we'll just use the negative charge concussion bomb to knock ya out."

"Gee thanks." I smirked gratefully and walked away out of the ship to get some fresh air, barely noticing the glare that Nebula sent my way before I left.

***Boom!***

Sucking air in through my teeth I realized I didn't stabilize the console and ran into the forest to avoid Rocket yelling.

_Later at Night_

3rd Person POV

As the four moons rose over the planet, Rocket's hums to a song that was playing echoed throughout the ship and out into the forest, where a group of Ravagers was stealthily making their way to the fallen ship.

One group made its way toward the ship but a tripped pedal activated a trap that launched dozens of darts to the group and knocked them out. One Ravager's weapon was fired as they collapsed, sending its bullets into the sky and alerting the occupants of the ship; waking Nebula from where she was resting and catching Gora and Groot's attention from where they were looking out the window into the forest as a speaker lay near them conveying the hums being heard from the outside.

JJ's location is unknown while Rocket is sitting in a tree right above another approaching group of scouts with a walkie talkie in his paws as he hummed the tune before stopping to scamper across the branches.

"There!"

The Ravagers blasted at Rocket as he hopped from tree to tree and bullets whizz past him before he leads them to right where he wants them.

He stopped and hid behind a trunk before he pulled out and pressed a button on a device that activated a percussive bomb to launch the groups up into the sky repeatedly as he snickered with each button press.

With another group they walk carefully through the trees and Rocket sits on a branch watching them as he pulls out an armful of little metal discs. Leaping nimbly across the Ravagers, he sticks all the discs onto their heads before going back up into the trees to press a button on his wrist to activate the electric shock function that sent a current coursing through each of the disks to send then convulsing unto unconsciousness.

Leaping off the trees and landing on the dirt in a crouched position and sniffed the air to detect two scouts trying to surround him.

"Ain't so tough now without all your toys, are you?" One of the Scouts taunts before Rocket leaps onto his shoulders and punches him in the throat to where he couldn't breathe.

The other scout was about to shoot him when a bright blue blur shot toward him and knocked him to the ground, a vicious shriek sounding in addition to the scout's screams before they fell silent. Rocket jumped off from the scout he took out to see JJ hunched over the other fallen scout with more glowing blue fluid dripping from the corner of her mouth and her eyes blank and glowing the same color.

"Kid…" Rocket held up his paws in a nonthreatening manner as Frenzy JJ let out a wail and shocked the scout she tackled down after he tried to get back up.

"You need to calm the frick down before I have to make you." As he spoke he used one paw to rummage through the pouches on his belt to look for the bomb that would knock her out, only to find it wasn't there.

"Crap…" He muttered right before JJ fired a shot at him that he barely managed to duck. Just as she was getting ready to fire another blast, she dipped her head down and clutched it with both hands, falling to her knees before starting to gasp for air as her eyes dimmed back down to normal.

"R-rocket…?" She whispered as the pain in her head started to die down a little bit at a time before she noticed the fallen Ravager behind her to smile ruefully and say, "I went Frenzy again, didn't I?"

"Yeah yeah you did…"

The moment was ruined when a whistle sounded in the forest and, before either of them could process it, a familiar, flying red arrow zipped over to JJ and hovered right in front of her face.

"Crap." Rocket mumbled while JJ tried not to freak out with the deadly weapon mere centimeters from her face.

Out of the brush around them came the main group of Ravagers led by Yondu as he chuckled and greeted,

"Hey there, rat."

"How's it going, you blue idiot?" Rocket snarked as he held up his paws in surrender and motioned to JJ to do the same.

"Eh, not so bad. We got a pretty good gig. A golden gal with quite a high opinion of herself offered us a large sum to deliver you and your pals to her, so she can kill y'all. 'Specially you, Sparky."

"Yeah I figured as much…" JJ deadpanned with a half-lidded glare.

"I'll tell ya it was pretty easy to find you, we put a tracer on your ship back during the war over Xandar."

"Give me your word you won't hurt JJ and Groot, and... I'll tell you where the batteries are." Rocket bargained with Yondu, who laughed and responded with,

"Lucky for you my word doesn't mean squat. Otherwise I'd actually hand you over."

"Otherwise you'd what?!" One of the Ravagers yelled in disbelief.

"We'll take them batteries. They're worth what a... quarter mil on the open market?"

"That priestess offered us a million! A quarter is only one-third of that!" The same Ravager from before argued.

"A quarter ain't one-third."

"A quarter is twenty-five. We can't even buy a pair of boots with twenty-five units!" Another Ravager with yellow goggles disagreed causing everyone to start arguing again until Yondu cut them off with,

"Enough! The point is, we ain't stupid enough to help kill the Guardians of the Galaxy. We'd have the whole dang Nova Corps on us."

"That ain't right." Kraglin asserted into the conversation with, "I just gotta say it this one time, Cap'n. No matter how many times Quill betrays you, you protect him, like none of the rest of us much matter.I'm the one what sticks up for you, me and Tullk."

"Damn straight, lad. You're right he's gone soft. S'pose it's time for a change in leadership!"

Everyone started yelling and arguing with weapons raising from everyone to everyone even when Rocket tried to reason,

"Woah! Woah! There's gotta be some sort of peaceful resolution to this fellas! Or even a violent one, where the kid and I're standin' over there."

Yondu glares at the Ravager who was questioning his leadership prepared to fire his arrow at him were it not for the blast that blew the top of his fin off and made him collapse onto the ground to reveal that the person who took the shot was none other than Nebula.

"Crap…"

She shot Rocket next with an electric dart and threw a sphere toward JJ that knocked her down and weakened her with the wave of energy that emitted from it.

"Well, hello, boys." She greeted the group before taking a bite out of a Yaro root and spitting it back out, trying to casually cover it up with, "It's not ripe."

"We tried to tell ya…" JJ mumbled before she fully passed out.


	21. Stupid Names

3rd Person POV

After being taken back aboard the Eclector, the Ravagers who sided with having a new leader began ejecting those loyal to Yondu out the airlock into the vacuum of space. Yondu had been bound to a chair, forced to watch as countless Ravagers pleaded and begged for their captain to help them.

A little ways past Yondu, Groot was being held in a small cage that was suspended from the ceiling while Rocket and JJ were both tied back to back in chairs and Gora was being restrained with a ridiculous amount of chain to prevent her from using her spines to pick the lock and a muzzle from trying to bite the Ravagers who chained her up.

Another doomed Ravager was being dragged to the airlock when the self-declared new leader came up to Yondu and yelled in his face while grabbing the side of his head,

"You're the one what killed those men by leading 'em down the wrong path. Because you're weak."

Punctuating each sentence with a punch to his head, the rest of the followers roared with bloodlust at each blow of their former leader's head.

"And stupid."

"It's time for the Ravagers to once again rise to glory with a new cap'n... _Taserface_."

Every Ravager cheered raucously as Taserface raised his arms in a victorious pose until a loud snickering silenced everyone else, revealing the snickering pair to be Rocket and JJ,

"I'm sorry. Your name is... it's 'Taserface'?" Rocket asked.

"That's right." Taserface replied

"What you shoot tasers out of your face or somethin'?" JJ questioned skeptically.

"It's metaphorical!" Taserface shouts earning another cheer from his followers.

"For what?" Rocket asked when the cheering died back down.

"For… It is a name that strikes fear into the hearts of anyone what hears it!"

At that, everyone half-heartedly agreed and muttered things like 'Ok' before Rocket spoke doubtfully,

"Oookaaay."

"You shut up! You're next!" Taserface directed to Rocket before facing Yondu again and beginning his speech,

"Udonta, I been waiting to do this for a long time-"

Before he was interrupted by more snickering, mainly from Rocket this time and Taserface yelled,

"What?!"

Rocket struggling to speak through the amount of chuckling he was doing before he told him,

"I'm sorry, I am _so_ sorry. I just keep imagining you waking up one morning, looking in the mirror, and, in all seriousness, saying to yourself You know what would be a really kickass name? Taserface!' That's how I hear you in my head!"

Rocket and JJ laughed out loud as the others were struggling to contain their laughter before Rocket continued his mockery with,

"What was your second choice?! Scrotum Hat?!"

Causing everyone to burst out laughing, even Groot and Gora in their imprisonment managed to crack up at that until it was cut off with Taserface getting right in Rocket's face with his knife by his throat and yelling,

"New plan. We're killing you first."

"Well, dying is certainly better than having to live an entire life as a moronic sh*tbag who thinks 'Taserface' is a cool name." Rocket deadpanned earning a snarl from Taserface before Nebula cut him off with,

"That's enough killing for today."

Taserface hesitating to back away until Nebula lifted herself off the wall she had been leaning against in a quick motion and making her way over to him as he spoke irritated,

"Thought you were the biggest sadist in the galaxy."

"That was when Daddy was paying my bills. The Priestess wants to kill the fox, cat, and child herself. Especially the cat and child." Nebula paused a moment to glare at JJ and Gora with a dead expression before motioning to Yondu,

"And he has bounties on his head in at least twelve Kree provinces".

Taserface advances toward her in a motion that would've led to an attack, prompting Nebula to add,

"I assure you, I am not as easy mark as an old man without his magic stick or a talking woodland beast."

Taserface finally backing down before she added,

"I want 10% of the take… and a couple more things."

More snarls catching their attention as JJ was twitching around in her seat and bucking around like an untamed animal before her head lifted up and her eyes blanked out again and more glowing liquid was dripping from the corner of her mouth.

"Frenzy!" Rocket yelled before ducking his head down as JJ burst out of her restraints like they were nothing and jumped to the wall to crawl up to the ceiling like a spider as the other Ravagers readied and aimed their weapons at her, Gora struggling in her restraints to get to her charge.

"Take it down!" Taserface ordered before an orb was chucked to JJ and the explosion it emitted made her screech and fall to the ground clutching her sides with heavy breaths and a pained expression in her blank, glowing eyes. Everyone looked to see that Nebula was the one to throw the bomb with a steeled expression on her face.

"Throw the prisoners into the cell!" As soon as the order was given, Yondu, Rocket, Groot, and Gora were all dragged away and some move to immobilize JJ with insulating cuffs before Nebula stopped them with,

"I need a moment with her."

The Ravagers were too scared of her to argue and soon the two of them were alone in the room with JJ still in Frenzy-mode but weakened as she lay on the ground still breathing heavily.

"You should know I will enjoy hearing of your demise at the hands of that priestess." Nebula spoke while slamming the cuffs around JJ's wrists and she only struggled minimally before Nebula continued in a half-hearted tone, "I suppose you and I are alike in the sense that we were modified to become weapons of mass destruction meant to carry out the orders of our creators... but that isn't the only thing we share… Gamora was all I had all that time training with our father…" Nebula's voice started to take on an angry tone as she spoke, "Then she left with you and the band of _idiots_ she calls her friends and I was all alone... and there you were replacing me… after I've killed her, it won't be long before you are eliminated as well..."

Nebula stood up and turned before saying to JJ as she began to pass out from exhaustion,

"And we will be sisters no longer..."


	22. (Another) Prison Break

3rd Person POV

After Nebula successfully restrained JJ, she was brought to the cell with the others as they were all thrown in together and she had managed to shake out of her frenzied state, but was severely weakened and looked completely out of it.

"We'll deliver you to the Kree in the morning. Not one of you is gonna last much longer after that." Taserface warned them as he closed the cell door behind them.

"Okay. Hey, tell the other guys we said hi, _Taserface_!" Rocket yelled through the bars as JJ started to come to with a weak laugh,

"Heh heh stupid name..."

"No offense, but your employees are a bunch of jerks." Rocket directed to Yondu as he sat against the wall before he started his spiel,

"I was a Kree battle-slave for twenty years when Stakar freed me. He offered me a place in the Ravagers… said all I needed to do was adhere to the code… but I was young and greedy and stupid... like you stealing those batteries."

"That was mostly Drax."

"Keep tellin' yerself that..." JJ slurred tiredly.

"Shut up..." Rocket snapped making JJ chuckle again.

"Me and Stakar, and the other captains, we weren't so different from you and your friends. The only family I ever had. But I broke the code. They exiled me. This is what I deserve."

"Slow down, drama queen. You might deserve this, but we don't. We gotta get out of here." Rocket told him getting up from where he was standing to look around their confinement.

"Where's Quill?"

"Went off with his old man."

"Ego?"

"Yeah. It's a day for dumba** names."

Yondu snickered before Rocket cut in with,

"You smiled and for a second I got a warm feeling, but then it was ruined by those disgusting-a** teeth."

"You're like a professional a**hole or what?

"Pretty much a pro. Why didn't you deliver Quill to Ego like you promised?"

"He was skinny, could fit into places we couldn't. Good for thieving."

"Uh huh..." Rocket responded, unconvinced that that was the whole truth making Yondu look uncomfortable before telling them,

"I got an idea on how to get outta here. But we're gonna need your little friend."

A short while later, Groot came trudging along past their cell, dressed in a tiny Ravager uniform that looked like it had been ripped in several places and was dripping in amber-colored liquid.

"Hey, twig. C'mere." Yondu called Groot over to them and he slowly walked over to them, Rocket grabbing the bars of their cell in worry before he asked,

"Oh, man. What'd they do to you?"

"Hey, you wanna help us get outta here?"

Groot nodded softly before Yondu started to explain to him,

"There's something I need you to get, and bring back to me. In the Cap'n's quarters, there's a prototype fin, like the thing I wore on my head. There's a drawer next to the bunk. It's inside that. It's red. You got it?"

Multiple tries later, Groot brought them Yondu's underwear, an Orloni, a Ravager's cybernetic eye, a desk, and severed toe. Eventually, after a pointless discussion as to why Groot hated hats, he left with Yondu's Ravager patch to guide him to the right drawer to look in.

"How much you wanna bet he doesn't get it." JJ bet since she was feeling a little more awake and was trying to pick the lock to her cuffs with a piece of metal she found before it snapped in half.

A metallic clang got their attention and they looked up to see Kraglin with Groot on his shoulder with a solemn look on his face.

"I didn't mean to do a mutiny…" He spoke in a sadly guilty tone while his eyes teared up, "They killed all my friends."

There was a moment of silence before Yondu ordered,

"Go get the third quadrant ready for release."

Kraglin giving the Ravager salute before letting Groot down onto the bars of the cell after giving him the keys to JJ's and Gora's locks.

"One more thing." Rocket stopped Kraglin from leaving long enough to ask him, "You got any clones of Quill's old music on the ship?"

A few minutes later, Rocket had finished fixing Yondu's fin and JJ had unlocked hers and Gora's restraints and Rocket had managed to patch Quill's music through the ship's PA system. As soon as the two guards opened the doors to see what was going on, Yondu summoned his Yaka arrow and pierced through them and they strode out of the cell like it was nothing as music played in the background. Rocket armed himself with the weapons of the fallen guards before telling JJ,

"Get the quadrant and give it as big of a power boost as you can for when we blow this joint."

"Awww but I want to fry some traitors." JJ complained before Rocket gave her the look and she gave in, _"Fine..."_

Before touching the wall beside her and electroporting away, she jumped out right outside the quadrant's door, startling Kraglin as he was about to get in.

"Are ya gonna stand there starin' or are we gonna get this thing moving?" JJ asked impatiently as she got inside with Kraglin behind her to start up the ship.

"Give'er a jolt… now!"

Touching a hand to the console in front of her, JJ focused what energy she did have into the engine and all the lights brightened as the energy spread to the rest of the ship. A couple of minutes later, Yondu, Rocket, Groot, and Gora came running in with Rocket grumbling behind them.

"What happened?"

"This whole ship's 'bout to blow is what happened?"

"What?! When you said we'd blow the joint I didn't you meant you'd actually blow it up!"

"For once it actually wasn't my idea!"

"Pipe down you two!" Yondu yelled to the two of them before ordering, "Kraglin, release the quadrant."

"Aye Capn'."

They managed to detach the ship just as the Eclector blew up and the explosion's shockwave pushed them further out into space. Onboard, Rocket pulls up the navigation panel right before Kraglin asks,

"Where to, Cap'n?"

Rocket interrupting as he set the destination,

"Ego."

"No, boy!" Yondu's warning came too late as the ship began to travel through multiple jump points, each time they passed through to another world everyone minus JJ and Gora's physical features started to distort more and more.

"It ain't healthy for a mammalian body to hop over fifty jumps at a time." Yondu explained as his mouth got laughably bigger and wider.

"I know that." Rocket snarked.

"We're about to do _seven-hundred._" Yondu emphasized as Rocket's eyes got bigger, Groot's mouth got bigger than his face, and one of Kraglin's eyes got bigger than the other.

"Heh mammals..." JJ smirked as she and Gora watched their transformations with amusement.

AN- I'm really sorry for not updating recently but I've got a lot going on in my life right now with school and family issues that need sorting out. I will still be trying to update as soon as I can, especially with my new laptop working better than my mom's laptop, but I probably won't be able to update every Friday like I used to with all the stuff I got going on right now. Thank you to those of you who still read my stories and I hope to not disappoint you with how my stories are going.


	23. Prepping for Battle

JJ's POV

After traveling through seven hundred jump points, all while Gora and I sat there watching everyone else change like some kind of messed up "funhouse" mirror Quill used to go on about until we arrived right outside of Ego's planet. Jerking to a stop, Rocket, Kraglin, and Yondu fell out of their seats and Groot was sent hurtling toward the wall before Gora caught him with her spines and he threw up glowing green barf right onto her head.

"Ewwwww..." I wrinkled my nose after Gora put Groot down and he started to try and climb back on her as she started to shake and clean herself off.

"What the hell are you doing, boy?!" Yondu yelled to Rocket,

"I could tell by how you talked about him this Ego is bad news. We're here to _save Quill_."

"For what? For '_honor'_? For '_love'_?"

"Pfft as if." I snorted as I picked Groot off of Gora so she could finish cleaning herself off from the glowing vomit and placed him on the console closest to Yondu.

"_No_! I don't care about those things! I want to save Quill so I can prove I'm _better_ than him! I can lord this over him forever!"

Yondu started chuckling as he got back up again, making me say as I raised my eyebrow,

"It's official: he's lost it."

"I ain't the one who's lost." He pointed between me and Rocket before saying, "You two's are the ones who're lost."

"_What?!" _Rocket and I spoke at the same time.

"You can fool yourselves and everyone else but you can't fool me. I know who you both are."

"You don't know anything about us, _loser_." Rocket shot back

"I know everything about you. I know _you_ play like the meanest and the hardest 'cause you're actually the most sacred of all."

"Shut up." Rocket growled.

"I know you steal batteries you don't _need_ and you push away anyone who's willing to put up with you, 'cause just a little bit of love, even from your own kid, reminds you how big and empty that hole inside you actually is! And _you_ follow his lead because you're _scared_ that if you stray too far away you'll end up losing another family and you don't want to give up on this one like you did your last one."

"Cut it out!" I yelled.

"I said, shut up." Rocket snapped.

"I know the scientists what made you never gave a rat's a** about either o' you-"

"I'm serious, dude!" Rocket's stance began to falter as Yondu continued to shout,

"Just like my own damn parents, who sold _me_, their own little baby, into slavery! I know who you both are, because you're _me_."

Yondu stopped right in front of Rocket and the two of them looked at each other intensely before Rocket asked,

"What kind of trio are we?"

"The kind that's about to go fight a planet I reckon." Yondu answered as he stood back up and went to the front console.

"All right, okay, that's- Wait. Fight a what?" Rocket questioned and I was about to ask something before I felt a stinging in my head and my eyes blazed with heat and my conscious blacked out as it felt like something else was starting to control me.

3rd Person POV

"Kid?" Rocket cautiously drew out as JJ stood with her back to them, but sparks were starting to crackle around her hands.

"What's goin' on?" Kraglin questioned, starting to worry.

"Aw crap... frenzy!" Rocket shouted and JJ started to jump around trying to stick to the surfaces of the wall but kept slipping down and knocking things out of place.

"What's wrong with'er?" Yondu questioned as JJ stuck to the ceiling before falling back down to the floor painfully.

"I dunno, some kind of transformation deal."

JJ unleashed a pained scream and her hands went to her neck as she collapsed to the floor on her side and writhed in pain.

"Is'er neck s'posed to be glowing like that?" Kraglin questioned and they noticed a bright red light underneath her skin on the back of her neck.

"It's the power chip." Rocket started to explain.

"What?"

"I dunno, scientists put it in'er and it boosts her powers but too much and it'll melt right through."

At that, JJ caught sight of them and went on all fours, looking like she was about to charge at them like some kind of enraged bull before she was once again snared by Gora's spines.

"Take her below, there's less power to take down there." Yondu told Gora and she was about to do so when JJ sent a powerful shock through Gora's spines, sending her straight for a wall where she collided with it and fell unmoving to the floor with a painful ***Bang***, allowing JJ to start drawing power from one of the consoles.

"If she takes too much, we'll go down before we even get to the battle." Kraglin informed them all right before JJ drained all the power, leaving the console she had been standing on blackened and shorted out before she started to randomly fire some bolts of energy at them, forcing them to seek shelter against the blasts.

"Ain't happenin', where's the auxiliary power cord on this junk heap?"

"Right underneath'er." Yondu pointed to a light gray panel underneath the console where JJ was currently draining the power from before leaving it fried like the first one.

"Of course it is..." Rocket grimaced before waiting until JJ stopped firing long enough to drain more power from another console before running toward the panel.

JJ's power siphoning sent a couple of streaks of electricity jump out of her to her surrounding, but Rocket continued toward the panel on all fours before he got to it and hurried to open it. JJ caught sight of him and was about to shoot him when she stopped suddenly and looked like she was fighting with all her willpower not to hurt him. Her hesitation gave Rocket enough time to get a hold of the power cable before ripping it out of place to connect the exposed end to the center of her torso, sending a surge of energy right for her core and expelling a shockwave that knocked them both back.

When Rocket got back up, he saw that JJ was on her hands and knees and, when she looked back up, her eyes were glowing the same scarlet red as the chip in her neck. She was about to lunge toward him when a whistle and a red streak crossed the back of her head, sending her back down to the floor as a gash on her neck started to trickle with her bright purple blood.

"Ugghhh…" JJ groaned as she picked herself back up and held a hand to her forehead before asking, "What happened?"

"You went Frenzy-mode again."

"So _that's_ why my head feels like it got pummeled by a Rhinopus..." JJ raised her right hand to rub her forehead again when Rocket noticed new marks on her arm; three bright yellow triangles in a slightly bigger and more space out triangle. Just as he was about to bring it up though, JJ yelled,

"Gora!" Before running over to where Gora was laying with Groot hugging her head worriedly.

"_I _did this…?" JJ spoke in guilty disbelief.

"You and whatever kind of mind control this thing had in it." Yondu added while holding up his arrow that had the chip previously in JJ's neck impaled on its tip and dripping with some of her blood, but JJ wasn't listening as she tried to get Gora to wake up,

"_C'mooon..._" JJ held both of her hands over Gora's heart and closed her eyes, seconds later a dim light where her core was shone and sent small tendrils of light down her arms, lighting up the marks on her arm, before traveling down to her hands down to Gora, sending out ripples of bright yellow light. Right as the light dimmed back down, Gora's large eyes flickered opened before shakily using her spines to steady herself as she got back up.

"I Am Groot!" Groot shouted excitedly as he hugged Gora around her neck and she used her spines to pat him on the back before she extended one to wrap around JJ's wrist,

_You've managed to unlock your true potential... Good…_

"Thanks." JJ gave her a small smile.

"Glad to have ya back." Rocket started earnestly.

"Really?"

"Yeah, havin' to constantly avoid gettin' my fur fried got real old real quick."

"And I'm not sorry about it." JJ smirked at him, making him smile back before,

"I hate to interrupt this tender moment," Yondu interrupted, "but we _do_ still have a battle to get to."

"_Right."_


	24. The Final Battle Part 1

JJ's POV

As we walked through the ship to get to the launch bay that would get us to the dropship that would take us to Ego's surface, I saw Gora trying to get on so I held out a hand right as Rocket told her,

"You're not goin' anywhere"

"I have to!" She tried to argue but I told her,

"You're still weak, you need to rest."

"What if you...?" She looked down and I could tell from her expression what she was about to say so I kneeled down to her level before assuring her,

"You're not gonna lose me, it'll take more than a pissed off planet to take me out. Plus someone needs to keep an eye on Groot."

Gora looked down at the little being who was standing around idly staring at the ship before she looked back up at me and gave a nod to go ahead so we continued to walk toward the dropship.

_"Rocket?!" _Gamora's voice finally came through the communicator.

"Keep that transmitter nearby so I can find you. We're in an old piece of construction equipment Yondu once used to slice open the Bank of A'askavaria." Rocket told her through the comm as they climbed the ladder into the ship.

_"Ego's unhinged."_

"I know. Get ready."

"Drop it, Kraglin!" Yondu ordered and the ship was released and was being piloted to the planet when I felt something rustling around in one of the pouches on my belt and I looked down to see Groot smiling up at me.

"Groot!" I yelled catching Rocket's attention as I scolded him,

"We told you to stay with Gora!"

"I am _Groot_!"

"Whaddya mean you want to kick some a-"

"Hey he needs to watch his language!" Rocket reminded me and I rolled my eyes before telling Groot,

"OK fine! Just stay close to one of us." Before I handed him to Rocket as I made my way over to a console.

"Let's see if we can speed this up." I readied my hands against it.

"What're you doin'?!"

"I took some before, time to give it back" I answered as the marks on my arm glowed and sent a stream of energy through my arms into the console, sending the ship blasting forward down into the planet's atmosphere right toward a fancy looking building that Yondu steered us straight for. We all braced as he drove the ship right through the window and in a split second I saw Ego holding Quill on the end of some freaky glowing tentacle before Yondu yelled,

"Hey there, Jackass!" Smashing Ego underneath the ship before the side door opened to let the others, including Nebula, in and Groot waved to them.

"Out of the way, dumber, smaller Groot." Drax told Groot, making him mad, to where he started punching his arm in annoyance.

"What are you doing? You could have killed us all." Drax questioned accusingly.

"Uh, 'Thank you, Rocket'?" Rocket snarked back as I added,

"Yeah ingrate..."

"We had it under control." Drax protested but Mantis disagreed,

"We did not. That is only an extension of his true self. He will be back soon."

"What's Smurfette doing here!?" Quill questioned seeing Nebula on board as she answered sarcastically,

"Whatever I need to do to get a damn ride home."

"She tried to murder me!" Rocket yelled and she retorted,

"I saved you, you stupid _fox_."

"He's not a fox." Gamora told her sister.

"I am Groot." Groot stepped in.

"I'm not a raboon either!"

"_I_ am Groot."

"'Raccoon,' whatever!"

"Oh _please_ she's just mad cause she thinks I'm replacing her." I snarked making Nebula face me with an intense look in her eyes,

"You heard all of that?!"

"Yeah but who cares right now we got bigger problems to worry about?!" I pointed out the window as more glowing tentacles rose up from the ground to try to trap the ship

"How do we kill a Celestial?" Drax asked as the ship was being surrounded by more tentacles.

"There's the center to him his brain, his soul, whatever it is, in some sort of protective shell." Quill explained and Mantis added,

"It's in the caverns below the surface."

Quill went up to the cockpit while I stayed close to Rocket to help him with running the weapons when we could hear Yondu and Quill arguing,

"You said you were gonna _eat_ me!"

"That was being funny!"

"Not to _me_!"

"You people have issues." Rocket told them and Quill yelled,

"Of _course_ I have _issues_. That's my fricking father!" I looked out the window to see a seriously messed up skeleton monster that was supposed to be Ego as he reformed.

"Thrusters are back up." Quill announced and he drove right through his dad's body.

"Am I glad you take after your mom..." I muttered as I started to flick a few switches.

"No he doesn't." Rocket smirked as the ship nosedived and we all had to hang on to something as we headed down.

"We should be going up!" Yondu pointed out as we were heading straight for the ground before Quill told him,

"We can't. Ego wants to eradicate the universe as we know it. We have to kill him. Rocket!"

"Got it." Rocket was about to deploy the lasers when he turned to me and asked, "Think you can give'em a boost?"

"You know it." I focused and sent a charge of energy straight for the lasers as they carved through the layers of dirt and stone that made up the planet and Rocket directed them with the joystick and levers.

"So, we're saving the galaxy again?" Rocket asked and Quill answered,

"I guess."

"Awesome. We'll really be able to jack up our prices if we're two time-galaxy savers."

"I seriously can't believe that is where your mind goes."

"It was just a random thought, man! I thought we were friends! Of course I care about the planets, and the buildings, and all of the animals on the planets."

"And the people."

"Meh."

"The crabby puppy is so cute he makes me want to die!" Mantis laughed as we managed to break through the last layer of dirt to where some kind of orb center branched out to the rest of the planet.

"There! That's Ego's core." Quill pointed to the center of the planet and the ship was leveled out in front of it.

"That ore's thick. Rocket." Gamora pointed out.

"I got it." Rocket used the joystick to direct all the orbs back together.

"We must hurry. It will not take Ego long to find us." Mantis rushed us.

"Keep it still!" Rocket told Yondu and Quill as the orbs all came back together and they created a single beam that started to pierce through the metal.

"We drill into the center, we kill him."

"What else was the plan?" I told him sarcastically just before we heard Kraglin's voice over the ship's comms,

_Cap'n?_

"What is it, Kraglin?"

_Um, remember that Ayesha chick?_

"Yeah, why?"

"Uhh _that's_ why." I pointed out the window at all the golden ships that were flying toward us.

"Aw, hell."

We managed to get away before they blasted the ship to bits but we also dropped several of the others overboard to the ground below.

"Why aren't you firing the laser?!" Quill asked as he and Yondu avoided the blasts from the ships.

"Generator's busted." I took my hands off the walls as I took some of the leftover energy from the destroyed generator.

"I think I packed a small detonator." Rocket dumped out his belt pouches to search for what he needed.

"A detonator is worthless without explosives!" Nebular pointed out right as Rocket found the two Anulax batteries he stole earlier and told her,

"Well we got these!"

"Is it strong enough to kill Ego?" Quill asked as he got down from the cockpit.

"If it is, it will cause a chain reaction throughout his entire nervous system." Rocket explained as he used up all his tape to strap the batteries to the detonator.

"Meaning what?"

"Whole planet goes '_Boooom_'." I told him like he was a baby with a small explosion hand motion before rolling my eyes.

"We'll have to get out of here fast. I rigged a timer." Rocket picked up Groot and he and Quill snapped on some Aerorigs while I thumped my heel down to make some orbs come out and form a circular hover platform.

"Go!" The three of us flew out of the hole in the side of the ship and made it through all the lasers from the Sovereign ships to get to the hole we managed to make in it. Rocket turned a flashlight on and looked at the dent we made before saying,

"The metal is too thick! For the bomb to work we'd actually need to place it _on_ Ego's core. And our fat butts ain't gonna fit through those tiny holes."

"Speak for yourselves." I cracked my knuckles before setting a hand on the metal and focusing on electroporting straight to the center. As soon as I felt my disassembled self get to the center, some kind of force repelled me back and I landed on my butt back with Rocket and Quill.

"Any other ideas?" I asked as I painfully got back up and held my shoulder.

"Well..." Quill looked to Groot as he was on the ground playing with a leaf growing out of his shoulder.

"That's a terrible idea." Rocket stated.

"Which is the only kind of idea we got left." Quill made a point.

"And really it usually works out for us… mostly... sometimes… OK barely..." I pointed out but got more unsure before Rocket picked up Groot and went down the tunnel with him complaining,

"Grrr... unbelievable. 'Rocket, do this. Rocket, do that.'"

"Try not to get yourself killed." I told Quill before he flew out and I went to catch up with Rocket as he was explaining how to use the bomb to Groot,

"All right. First you flick this switch, then this switch. That activates it." Rocket placed down the bomb in front of him as he continued, "Then you push this button, which will give you five minutes to get out of there. Now whatever you do _don't_ push this button, because that will set off the bomb immediately, and we'll all be dead. Now repeat back what I just said."

"I am Groot." Groot nodded to the first switch.

"Uh huh."

"I am Groot." Groot nodded to the second switch.

"That's right."

"I am Groot." He pointed to the Death Button making Rocket exclaim,

"No! That's the button that will kill everyone! Try again."

"Hmm… I am Groot.

"Mmhhmm."

"I am Groot."

"Uh huh."

"I am Groot." I nearly choked trying to hold back my laughs as he pointed to the Death Button again.

"No! That's exactly what you just said! How is that even possible?! Which button is the button you're supposed to push?! Point to it."

"NO!" I cracked up at Rocket's panicked shout just as Quill peeked in through a crack in the metal and told him,

"Hey, you're making him nervous!"

"Shut up! And give me some tape! Does anyone have any tape out there!? I wanna put some tape over the Death Button!"

"I don't have any tape. Let me check." Quill flew back out and we could hear him in the background as we waited for him to ask around,

"Yo, Yondu, do you have any ow! Do you have any tape?!" I made a few sparks appear above my fingers as Rocket scratched his neck.

"Owwhuhuowww Gamora, you have any tape? _Tape_ uhh nevermind it's fine."

"Drax! Do you have any tape…"

Rocket coughed and I laughed from hearing Quill's side of the conversation,

"Yeah Scotch tape would work… Then why did you ask me if Scotch tape would work if you don't have any?!"

He reappeared back in the hole before telling us,

"No one has any tape."

"Not a _single_ person has tape?" Rocket questioned.

"Nope."

"Did you ask _Nebula_?"

"Well yeah."

"Are you _sure_?"

"I asked Yondu and she was sitting right next to him."

"I knew you were lying!"

"You have priceless batteries and an atomic bomb in your bag! If anybody's gonna have tape it's _you_!"

I rummaged through my belt pouches as Rocket yelled,

"That's exactly my point!_ I have to do everything_!"

"You are wasting a lot of time!" Quill shouted right before my eyes widened at what I found before we turned to see Groot leap down a hole with the bomb in his arms as he slid down the tunnel shouting,

"Wheeeheheeeee..."

"We're all gonna die..." Rocket spoke disappointed.

"You know what the worst part is? I had tape." I stated as I pulled out the mini black roll I had and Rocket gave me the 'you're gonna die' look.


	25. The Final Battle Part 2

JJ's POV

A minute passed after Groot left and I turned to Rocket before saying,

"Let's go make sure the others don't get themselves killed."

"Agreed." We went to the entrance of the hole and he activated his Aero Rig while I summoned my hover platform to get to the others who were on the ground.

"Where's Quill?" I asked before several blasts caught my attention and I saw that the Sovereign crafts surrounded the ship Yondu and Nebula were on and started blasting away at it.

"No!" I jumped on my platform and started flying toward the ship right before it started to destroy the crafts with several lasers, but right after it exploded and the shockwave blew me back, sending my platform spinning out of control.

"I'm gonna-hlp!" I held a hand over my mouth as I felt like I was about to hurl before I noticed the marks on my arm start to glow and the orbs making up the platform start to glow as well before straightening out and landing me to the ground where the others were.

"I'm Mary Poppins, y'all!"

I looked up after hearing Yondu yell and saw that he and Quill managed to survive the ship exploding and were floating their way back down to the ground.

We all gathered around, sparks flying in the background and looked around at all the destruction before a piece of rubble hit Mantis and Drax shouted too late,

"Mantis, look out!"

"A little late for that!" I rolled my eyes before the lines in the ground started glowing again, "I'm getting tired of saying this but… Crap…"

"She's just unconscious." Drax picked Mantis up from the ground before Quill asked,

"How long before the bomb goes off?"

"In the unlikely event-"

"_Very_ unlikely." I interrupted Rocket.

"-Groot doesn't kill us all, about six minutes."

"Kraglin. We need the Quadrant for extraction in T-minus five minutes." Yondu comm'ed to Kraglin.

"Someone needs to be up top when Kraglin arrives. Drax, take Mantis." Quill gave Drax his Aero Rig and slapped it onto Drax's back to send him up just as he yelled,

"Ahhh! My nipples!"

I snorted right before the ground around us started to crack apart from all the shaking that was happening, sending Gamora right through.

"Gamora!" Quill shouted and I looked to Nebula and gave her a determined nod that she returned before she jumped off the ledge after her while the rest of us were faced with a bunch of glowy tentacles rising from the ground.

"Let's get to it..." I muttered before making my platform rise to the air as Quill started to blast the tentacles apart, Yondu used his arrow to slice them apart, and Rocket used his mini bombs before activating his bubble shield, leaving him untouched as the bombs went off, destroying a couple of them.

I was leading a couple of tentacles away from Yondu when one caught me off guard and I ended up grabbing it with both hands to keep it from swatting me while using my platform's propulsion to fight against it. All of a sudden, my brain felt like it was being probed by a sharp tool and I felt… scared… lost… and angry…?

After letting go, I clutched my chest, feeling like I had just been drained of most of my energy and I was seeing blue blobs completely covering whole planets, Ego's plan I realized from information I now know that I didn't have a few seconds ago. I was snapped out of it when I heard several yells and I looked down to see that Yondu was pinned down to the ground, his arrow lying broken beside him, Rocket was being coiled up and trapped in the air, and Quill was lying on the ground.

"Once again it falls to me to save your a**es..." I dodged a couple of tentacles that reached for me before holding out my hand to try to blast them, but nothing came out.

"What the-?!" I looked down at my hands before swerving to the side to avoid another hit and trying again to blast them but failing.

"Kid, do something!" Rocket yelled to me as the tentacles started to close over him.

"Whaddaya expect?! These things drained me dry, I'm a walking battery, not a walking generator!"

**_"Battery?" _**Ego's voice sounded from all around us before part of the planet broke apart to reveal Ego's human form starting to appear and building up from the skeleton as he walked down to the ground.

"JJ run!" Quill shouted before two lines penetrated him and I had to pull an upright 360 to dodge a tentacle that tried to take out my platform from under me.

When I went upright again, I saw some pillars heading up to the surface and made a move to get to one when more tentacles blocked my way by twisting together to create a net right over me that dragged me back down to the ground, making my platform fall apart and I felt even more of my energy that I didn't even have in me being drained.

"I told you, Peter, I don't want to do this alone. You cannot deny the purpose the universe has bestowed upon you!" Ego starts tellin' Quill as more lines stab into him and the whole place lights up with his power before my body started to sting and the lights trapping me turned slightly purple as my core lit up before sending another burning wave of pain through me.

"It doesn't need to be like this Peter." Ego kept talkin' as he finished putting on his skin suit all while Quill looked like he was about to pass out forever, "Why are you destroying our chance?! Stop pretending you aren't, what you are! One in billions. Trillions, even more! What greater meaning could life possibly have to offer?!"

Another rush of pain hit me right before my core changed from purple to a bright yellow and I suddenly felt a new burst of strength just as Yondu called out to Quill,

"I don't use my head to fly the arrow, boy! I use my hea-" Getting cut off from Ego shutting him up with rocks piling on him.

"Let's see if I can..." I twisted around to get a grip on the tentacle trapping me and I tapped into it to get to Quill, seeing the memories he was thinking about: him and his mom listening to his music gadget together, him and Drax were laughing together on the Milano, he and Gamora's time on Knowhere, the time he and Rocket and Groot flight tested the Aero Rigs, when me and him were laughing over a fur puffed up Rocket after a prank, and a younger him being taught to shoot by Yondu.

_C'mon Quill… _I thought as I sent what fainting power I had left to him instead of Ego and some dirt swirled around him as the light surrounding all of us brightened up as he told Ego,

"You shouldn't have killed my mom and squished my walkman."

Before rushing forward to punch his dad away in midair, releasing me, Rocket, and Yondu from our rock prisons as Ego's power was being redirected to his fight with Quill. Rocket flew over to the hole in the metal to shout,

"Groot! Groot, if you can hear me, hurry up! I'm not sure how long Quill can keep him distracted!"

Right as the whole place started to crumble apart and I had to use some of my orbs as a mini shield to cover me and Rocket while flying in place next to him.

"This place is comin' apart!" I blasted a boulder that was about to hit Rocket from above into bits with a stream of power before realizing that I no longer felt drained of energy, but my platform was flickering slightly from the amount of damage it had taken from Ego's attacks.

"Kid, get up top. I'll meet you up there." Rocket told me after Groot came out of the hole and was flying to avoid the falling debris.

"Hey," I called out just before Rocket flew away, "Be careful… dad..."

"I will..."

I smiled right before thinking for my platform to rise up and fly toward the opening, dodging more debris before I saw Gamora and Nebula still climbing toward the surface so I slowed down long enough for me to hold out my hands to them and quip,

"Need a lift?"

"It's about time." Nebula snarked before grabbing one of my hands and Gamora grabbed the other so I could pull them the rest of the way up and drop them on the edge of the cliff.

Right after I landed next to them with my boots sparking up, a pillar burst up from the ground next to us and broke off at the base, leaning to fall on us when I felt my hands burn up and sensed the familiar crackle of power around them, my hair rose up in a static burst, and a light burned in my eyes when I raised up both my arms to the sky and called down a bolt of pure energy down from the sky to shatter the pillar into tiny pieces and we all ran toward the dropship and the power weakened.

We made it inside and were catching our breaths before Nebula told me,

"You aren't completely useless."

"I wanna say thanks?" I raised an eyebrow in question before smiling at her and the corner of her mouth twitched up before going back to normal and she went to sit at the other end of the room.

Gamora was checking on Mantis when I went to sit next to her and ask,

"So is she cool now?" Gesturing my head to Nebula who was fixing her arm and Gamora looked down for a second before answering,

"Yeah..."

"Nice… sis..."

The moment was ruined when Rocket came flying in with Groot on his shoulder, but it looked like he was upset about something.

"Where's Peter?" Gamora questioned and I put a hand on Rocket's shoulder before I heard Yondu's voice _'I ain't done nothing right my whole damn life rat, you gotta give me this...' _right before I heard Groot welcoming Yondu to the Guardians.

"Rocket, where is he?!" Gamora's voice snapped me out of the mind reading and I looked at Rocket in disbelief as he looked at the timer to show it was about to blow.

"Rocket?! Rocket, look at me! Where is he?!" Gamora yelled this time and Rocket just shook his head a little before Groot pointed outside the ship with a sad face.

"No. I'm not leaving without him." Gamora stood up and grabbed a gun off the rack and readied it before Rocket set his gun to stun and fired it at her, making her fall to the ground unconscious.

"I'm sorry. I can only afford to lose one friend today." Rocket apologized before calling up, "Kraglin, GO!"

"Rocket, where's Quill?! Where's Quill?! WHERE'S QUILL?!" Drax shouted through the comm system as Rocket and I watched the bay door closing on the crumbling planet.

"Was it really the only option?" I asked Rocket as I quickly swiped at my eyes.

"It was his call..."

I reached over and pulled him into a hug, ignoring the chance of him swatting me away like he usually does, but he didn't push me away this time and patted my head as the ship went further and further away from the dying planet, only swinging back around when it was time.


	26. Saying Goodbye

3rd Person POV

After retrieving Peter and Yondu from space, everyone gathered around the stand where Yondu's body was placed and placed something on it and him: bands of colored cloth, Yaro lilies, lit candles, a jeweled bug object, and the troll doll Peter left in the Power stone orb he gave to Yondu.

Rocket, Groot, Drax, Gamora, JJ, Gora, Mantis, and Kraglin stood around the stand with Quill at the head and Nebula standing off to the side before he started his speech,

"The other day I told Gamora how I used to pretend my dad was David Hasselhoff."

Rocket, Gora, JJ, and Drax exchanged a look before Peter answered,

"He's a singer and actor from Earth... a really famous guy."

Drax nodded in understanding before Peter continued,

"And, you know, today it struck me. Yondu didn't have a talking car, but he did have a flying arrow. And he didn't have the voice of an angel, but he did have the whistle of one. And both David Hasselhoff and Yondu went on kickass adventures, and hooked up with hot women, and fought robots. So, the thing is, David Hasselhoffkinda did end up being my Dad after all, only he was Yondu. I had a pretty cool Dad."

Peter started to break down a little as he finished up his speech with,

"And what I'm trying to say here is, that thing you're searching for your whole life, sometimes it's right there by your side all along and you don't even know it."

Afterward, Gamora turns to see Nebula leaving and went to follow her right before Groot spoke up,

"I am Groot?"

"He did call you 'twig.'" Rocket noted and looked to JJ as she looked in the direction Gamora and Nebula left in and nudged her side before nodding, giving her the go-ahead to follow.

JJ caught up with Gamora and Nebula in the middle of their conversation and stayed out of sight as she heard Gamora say,

"There are little girls like you all over the universe who are in danger. You can stay with us, and help them."

"I'll help them by killing Thanos." Nebula responded bluntly.

"I don't know if that's possible."

Nebula turned to leave before Gamora lightly grabbed her arm, making Nebula snap back before Gamora pulled her in for a hug and saying,

"You'll always be my sister... Both of you..."

Nebula hugged her back with one arm with tears welling in her dark eyes as she caught sight of JJ looking at them and nodding to her with a smile right before Nebula turned away and left.

Gamora turned to see JJ half-hidden behind the corner and gave her a joking warning look to which JJ grinned sheepishly and ran away, only stopping and her grin falling when she got back to where Yondu's body was being loaded into the crematory where the swirling cosmic energy disintegrated it and sent his ashes out into space.

Everyone disbanded after that and JJ found herself in the cockpit looking down on the marks on her arm trying to make them glow when Gora came in.

"They say you can only tap into your inner strength in times of need." She told her now that her thought translator had finally been fixed.

"That explains the whole light show while fighting Ego and saving the Stab Sisters..." She flexed her arm a bit before putting it down and looking out into space with a blank look on her face.

"I thought I'd be happy with finally welcoming this team in as my family, but… now I feel like by doing that… I'm giving up on what's left of my old one..." She confessed before continuing, "I mean I coulda sworn I felt closer to my sister than I've _ever_ felt before when I blasted that rock apart, like she was so close... _just_ out of reach..."

"I'm sure one day we'll find her, but, for now, be happy with what you've found in _this_ family…"

"Thanks Gora..." JJ pulled up Gora to hug her as she twined her spines around her and they stayed that way until some lights caught their attention and they looked out the window to see several ships jumping around the space where the ship was stationed in. They both looked at each other before heading to where the others were gathering in front of the full front window viewer to see all the ships gathering in front of the ship.

"What is it?" Drax questioned.

"I sent word to Yondu's old Ravager Buddies and told them what he did." Rocket answered.

"It's a Ravager funeral." Peter added in amazement as Groot leaped from his shoulder to Gamora's shoulder before each of the ships released a display of lights and fireworks as Yondu's ashes continued to drift out into space and all of the Guardians watched in awe.

"Amazing..." JJ gazed out in wonder before she put a hand to her core and drew out some power to make a mini display appear outside of their ship similar to the others'.

"He didn't chase 'em away." Rocket muttered and Peter answered each of his statement with a head shake,

"No."

"Even though he yelled at 'em."

"And was always mean."

"And he stole batteries he didn't need." Peter looked to Rocket in surprise to see him looking guiltily at the floor before saying,

"Of course not."

Afterward, Groot reached out for Drax who took him and let him fall asleep on his shoulder, patting his little back lightly as he continued to watch the lights show.

Gamora looked to Peter as the lights created a romantic scene and he caught her sight before asking,

"What?"

"It's just some unspoken thing." She responded before Peter put his arm around her and they stayed that way for a while.

"It's beautiful." Mantis admired the lights with her big eyes turning misty from the beauty of them

"It is. And so are you…" Drax told her before he caught what he said and added, "On the inside…"

JJ, Gora, and Rocket stood together, Gora with her spines twined around JJ arm in a hug-like stance while Rocket sat perched on JJ's shoulder with a paw on her head as they noticed that Yondu's ashes were forming the shape of a arrow streaking through the starry vastness of space and they could've sworn they heard a whistling in the distance.

JJ and Rocket looked at each other with tears in their eyes and small smiles on their faces before facing forward again, JJ leaning her head to him and Rocket putting his arm around it in a hug as they awaited whatever adventure would come next for them...

**JJ and the Guardians will return in Spark Sisters…**

AN- And that's a wrap for both Guardians of the Galaxy movies! I am still in the process of finishing up Age of Ultron for my Avengers OC Insert story which will then be followed by Civil War, two in between stories, end with Ragnarok and then the crossover story that takes place in Infinity War and Endgame will begin!

I'm sorry for leaving this story new chapter-less for a month but with school and now a part time job, my creativity has been leaving me. I am doing my best to write when I have time, but college midterms are a killer on my brain and I'm pretty sure I failed my Engineering midterm :(

Nonetheless, I am going to continue working on my Avengers OC Insert so I can get to Spark Sisters as soon as possible and I'm in the process of working on the first few chapters of my Lego Ninjago fanfic sequel if any of you are interested in that fandom as well. Plus, I will be posting a few more OC's in my OC Files book on Wattpad and some short stories for them, but I am open to short story and oneshot requests for any of my OC's.

Well on that long note, until the next story, Bye!


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